The last article that I wrote about African football elicited a strange response; I was talking about how Africans invest all their emotions in Arsenal or Chelsea and not so much in APR or Rayon. I was laughed at for being a Spurs fan and I quote “Don’t talk about Tottenham because nobody knows them, maybe talk about Chelsea but not Tottenham, they are not in premiership.” So I thought about what makes a fan a fan; and that is loyalty; sadly this is lacking among Africans and it is common to hear “I am fed up with Arsenal, 5 years without a trophy; I am going to switch to Manchester. Sadly, some Africans support SUCCESS not the actual team, they are ‘fair weather fans’ as the term goes. I have supported Spurs since 1984 when I watched them play the UEFA Cup final, back then they were a great team and played flowing football much like Arsenal do today. Time left them behind and the memory of the glory days is all that keeps me going however, I am sure that Spurs will reign supreme again and that moment will make up for all the pain. Life as a Spurs fan in Rwanda is very lonely, indeed I know only two other Spurs fans in Rwanda, however if we won the Premiership then things would change. When we look at African football and the Cecafa region in particular it is dire; we struggle to qualify for the African Nations Cup let alone the World Cup. There are many reasons for this; firstly our leagues are not competitive, our clubs are poorly run, our federations are the playthings of politicians wanting to manipulate public opinion, and our fans have given up. Football should be run by football men and not Grandstanding politicians, coaches should coach, managers should manage; roles need to be defined and respected. Instead fans invest their emotions in African players in the European leagues; Adebayor, Eboue, Toure, Drogba, Mikel, Kalou, and even honorary Africans like the Frenchman Thierry Henry. When you name all those players they are West Africans, this is because West Africans have the network to get into Europe via France and Belgium, there is an extensive scouting network to seek out players and most importantly they produce players with height, physique, stamina and skill. When you look at East African players they have a reputation for being stocky and short. Players have to be nurtured from a very young age, but our players’ mature then rewind their age on the passport. In Europe, if you are not a talent by 12-13 then one should give up but we try to tout players to Europe by 18 (when they are actually 30) which is too late to nurture a player. I have noticed the young players do not have the right nutrition growing up that they end up stunted. Coaches never pick youngsters with the right height or physique and you can see a center-back at 1.70m when you need 1.80-1.90m to play there. Youngsters play on full-size pitches and not smaller ones to learn close control; youngsters learn by playing and do little drilling and skills training, and so by playing bad habits are embedded in their psyche. There is no comprehensive coaching regime for our youngsters and yet we expect to qualify for the top tournaments; where is the grassroots programme? We also must stop taking the easy way out by naturalising foreign players and develop our own. If Rwanda played a U-19 team from Europe we would most likely lose because professionalism isn’t drilled into them from a young age; their composure, technical skill and tactical awareness is superior to ours. The answer is the youngsters you see playing with enthusiasm in the parks; how do we harness that vigour and give it focus and purpose? We don’t need money, just organisation because poverty breeds the best footballers; for only they have that hunger to succeed. There is a great Kinyarwanda saying that “hunger is sweet” let us eat this delicious hunger. All we need after all is a Rwandan player to break through; we need a hero but it won’t happen by accident. ramaisibo@hotmail.com
