World Cup: Why Africa is always in trouble

I am not part of the Brazilian Anti-World Cup protest crowd. I am not with them. I do not believe in protests and as far as I am concerned, that group was not comparing apples to apples. For the record, I have nothing against the World Cup; in fact I am a huge fan. Having settled that, let’s get down to business. I am troubled that no African team has ever won the World Cup, with all our teams eliminated in the current one, this year seems no different. Why is this the case? If it makes you feel any better, Asia has not won it either, in fact they are performing worse than we are as a continent. But we must compare ourselves with the best not the worst. The only thing more troubling than the no African world champion is the fact that no East African country has made it to the finals. Why is this? Are we so talent deficient that we are not there? Let us put the talent issue to rest. The European teams are full of our kith and kin in their squads. Initially, it was the case with former colonialists like Portugal, France, Britain and Belgium. But now almost every team of note has a black player. Italy’s Balotelli, Germany’s Boateng (whose brother played for Ghana), Belgium’s Origi, France’s Evra, Brazil’s Neymar, among so many others have genetic connections to the continent and some very directly so. They are superb players and there is more where they came from. Our troubles with the World Cup is not lack of talent, it is something else. In my biased opinion, Ghana, Cameroon and Cote D’Ivoire were the best placed African countries, based on squad strength to get to at least quarter finals. This is not to dismiss Nigeria and Algeria. As it turned out, the latter duo made it to second round. Conversely, Algeria, which I ranked the weakest team played the best football among African nations in this World Cup. I see potential and I worry that the way things are it will just remain that…potential. Here are the things we need to look at first: Management: Most African squads that go to major tournaments have very public internal squabbles playing out—most of the time it is about unpaid bonuses. Like a curse this problem runs uncontrolled from one African football squad to another. Some faceless group of officials happens to misappropriate the funds. The home governments, who contribute a huge portion of these funds are not allowed by Fifa rules to interfere in the running of football. Touch them and Fifa kicks you out. It is how we manage talent that contributes heavily to our trip to the dogs. Policy: African talent in sports comes out, for the most part as an exception rather than a norm. We have no policies that encourage the nurture and growth of sport. Talent has to fight to break out to the surface in the face of many odds. Most of the time it does not. On the contrary, many a European team of note have youth academies that now hunt for talent even in our backyards (and we applaud!). Americans have sports scholarships and all. Now we are financially crippled, but I am sure that if we put our minds to it, we can figure out something. We should! Discipline: the sight of Cameroonian players squabbling among themselves during their second World Cup game was unsightly. It is the epitome of lack of the discipline in our squads. It ranges from players who are unable to stick to their training regime to those that are openly defiant to authority. Officials are sometimes no better. This has to improve Local leagues: we are very fixated, as fans, on English premier league, La Liga, Serie A and other top European leagues. We have forgotten our own domestic leagues. How can we turn around and expect our players to do better? I have resolved to start being more active in supporting my local favorite team, APR. Support yours The trouble with the World Cup is that it really exposes who we could be and then highlights our frailties. The way we treat our football is no different from the way we handle our business. We must improve! Sam Kebongo is an entrepreneurship Development Consultant based in Kigali.