Around this time of the year, a question looms in the minds of many women (and some men): Why do men watch football?

A man will sit down for six hours in front of the television set when football games are on, yet he won’t sit still for more than 10 or 15 minutes for anything else when he’s at home.

A few weeks ago, the English soccer season began for the year 2008/09 with the Barclays premier league. For the men, it was time to celebrate.

At last they have something to keep them "busy” after World cup. While for the most women, it is beginning of a long dreaded walk to the mountain.

Reason? The men now have a "good” reason not to spend their leisure time at home or with women who don’t like soccer.

It is also a good time for your so called boyfriend to postpone a date because his favourite team  will be playing a late game that kicks off at 10am.

And before you know it, every man in this town will be coming home very late because he was "watching football.”

Well, it is the truth universally acknowledged that two in every three men will choose football as their favourite sport. Not even the recent concluded Olympics in Beijing!

If you want to prove, look around and ask any man about the performance of Rwanda’s Olympic team in details. Apart from making general statements like "No one won a medal”, most of them don’t know.

Actually just like everybody else, their likely response is "The U.S and China won most gold medals during the Olympics” like it was reported in the news. Whatever happened and was not reported in the news, they don’t know.

Anyhow the truth of the matter is that because most men love football, they will be interested in finding out the details of the game.

And in spite of the fact that most urban homes are connected to DSTV or GTV, most men prefer to watch football games outside the home in company of other male friends.

Therefore it should not be surprising that most men frequent the bar especially during the soccer season. As a woman you must understand and accept this fact. As a woman you must understand and accept this especially if your man is passionate about soccer.

This at times can be a source of friction in a home especially when the man begins coming home late. And this even gets worse when a woman is not a soccer fan.

You must understand that just like in other spheres of life the first step to solving a problem is accepting that the problem exists.

So accept the fact that your husband or boyfriend enjoys watching football way from home.

Contact: ubernie@gmail.com