Africa day
- 28 Jun 06, 11:05 AM
We held an African football summit on Thursday, with our resident Ghanaian, Vera Kwakofi, Nigerian and African football expert Osasu Obayiuwana, and Angola fan Romero all in the studio. We were also joined from the Ghanaian capital, Accra, by football journalist Durosimi Thomas. By the way, this is Martin Vennard writing and not Peter.
We think we made the right choice of subject given the huge number of texts and calls we received in the programme.
Nigeria and Ghana, in the form of Osasu and Vera, agreed that an African team would eventually win the World Cup and make Pele's prediction come true, if a little late, as long as African administrators get their act together.
Romero said African teams were always let down at the big tournaments by their countries' governments and football associations.
Durosimi said that despite Ghana going out to Brazil all was not doom and gloom in Accra. Ghana fans were consoled by the fact that they went out to the best team in Germany.
Ivory Coast fan Pascal said his team went out due to lack of experience, but that the Ivorian system of football academies was an example for the rest of Africa to follow.
Vera said Ghana had to learn to keep its concentration until the end of a match, unlike what happened against Brazil, while Romero said Angola's problem was that the team just couldn't score.
Dutch fan Stella phoned in to rubbish Johan Cruyff's claim that the Netherlands would have done better in the tournament if the Dutch immigration minister had granted Dutch citizenship to Ivory Coast winger Salomon Kalou.
Pascal said they would welcome him back into the Ivorian fold despite the fact that he wanted to play for the Netherlands. Romero said that one of Angola's problems was losing its Portuguese-based players to Portugal.
We also had a call from Cameroon fan Alex who said his country only had itself to blame for failing to qualify for the World Cup. Vera said he was one of the few Cameroonians to admit it.
Here are some of the texts we got:
M D Abdullah in Argungu, Nigeria, says:
Government interference in football administration would never allow African teams to prosper in a world cup fiesta
Mark Mkpanam in Ikot Abasi, Nigeria, says:
Africa should forget about world cup until refrees are ready to do well with them.
Another listener wrote:
It is silly to suggest that fifa should somehow try to restrict the movement of talent from africa to europe.
Comments??Post your comment
I think FIFA has once again under achieved...officiating has been a huge question in yet another world cup and in my opinion, the reason you see the refs having bad days at work is because FIFA requires them to call and enforce all the rules.
I have seen the refs suffer media bombardment about their performance on the field and as a result FIFA has sent them home packing. FIFA needs to take responsible for the disappointments of these tournament and they need to decide whether its time for a fourth official (the video ref). This will enable especially the smaller teams to receive fair calls and perhaps the reduction of human errors that affect so many peoples lives for years.
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