The Sickness of African Football is the Sickness of African Societies

The FIFA World Cup is now over for all the African teams. Six teams represented Africa: Ghana, Cameroon, Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Algeria and South Africa. Many had hoped that Ivory Coast, Ghana, Cameroon, and perhaps, Nigeria, would do well in the tournament. I am not sure that many who know about football thought that Algeria or South Africa would do well. As is now known, of all these countries, only Ghana put up a good showing. Cameroon, Ivory Coast, and Nigeria, teams that had good prospects, fell apart in ways that would make Italy and France proud. 

Although South Africa has silenced the naysayers who thought that the country could not host a successful football world cup tournament, the manner in which African countries crashed out of the competition is a cause for concern. Teams like Ivory Coast, Ghana, Cameroon, and Nigeria, have the caliber of players it takes to win the world cup. However, some Africans are now happily celebrating the fact that Ghana even reached the quarter finals. Few actually stress that an African country should have won the world cup. When are Africans going to stop being contented with mediocre performance?

The president of Nigeria took the matter seriously enough to demand radical changes in how Nigerian football is run. Even though his decision to ban the national team might have been an over-reaction, what is important about that decision is the fact that he took the matter seriously enough to do something about it. He saw that the performance of the Nigerian team was a reflection of how the country itself is run. The disorderliness of the players was a reflection of the disorderliness of Nigerian society. The image he wants to change is not only that of the football team but that of Nigeria itself. I am not naive about the extent to which Goodluck Jonathan can do this but the fact that he is trying to do something is, at least, a mark of seriousness. His response to the matter is in sharp contrast to that of Ivory Coast or Cameroon where those in charge simply want to stay anonymous even as their countries decay. They have so far failed to see that the disintegration of their national teams is a reflection of the disintegration of their societies. That is what the French saw - that is why French authorities are taking the poor showing of the French team at the world cup so seriously. Even though it does not follow that a poor showing at the world cup indicates societal disintegration, in the case of the African countries that participated in the world cup and in the case of France, their poor showings are marks of societal disintegration.