Football crazy: A red card for the modern game

When Zinedine Zidane moved from Juventus to Real Madrid for a transfer fee of well over US$50 million shortly after the 1998 FIFA World Cup (which he won with France), the world thought they had seen the limit of football 'business'. That record has been broken at least three times since 1998. Then came the summer of 2009 and the mother of all transfers (at least for now) when the same Madrid-based club renowned for its deep pockets doled out a whopping US$130 million for the 'legs' of Portuguese maestro Cristiano Ronaldo. There was even more drama when the 23-year-old was unveiled at Santiago Bernabéu some weeks later as over 80,000 of the Madrid faithful thronged the stadium to officially welcome him.

A few days before that watershed event, Real's spendthrift returnee president had snapped up AC Milan's Kaká for over US$90 million, and he was feted in similar fashion. Real Madrid also acquired Frenchman Karim Benzema and even Liverpool's Xabi Alonso, amounting to well over US$300 million in new player fees in one transfer season! Real Madrid seems not to be the only free-spending club in Europe at the moment; Manchester's blue corner is also making waves in the transfer market. Since a billionaire tycoon from the United Arab Emirates took over the club, Manchester City has joined the coterie of big European sides; some even joke they will displace one of England's 'big four', maybe Liverpool!

With the billionaire's petro-dollars, Manchester City has lured Robinho, formerly of Real Madrid, and Emmanuel Adebayor and Kolo Touré from Arsenal, with the total bill currently up to US$150 million. Madrid and Man City between them have spent half a billion dollars in a matter of weeks at a time of dire economic challenges – unemployment is over 9 per cent in the US and at almost 15 per cent in Madrid's Spain. It's not in doubt that football is no longer the passion or mass movement we thought it was; it's now an obsession, a religion where the round leather has become a 'god', the players the 'priests' and the 100 x 50 yard enclosure of the pitch the 'shrine'. What some folks started some centuries ago just to kill boredom has grown beyond anything they ever imagined. The beautiful game is now in the clutches of capitalism. Today it is one of the best-paying professions in the world and will remain so for at least the next half a century.

But can capitalism be said to be driving the madness that following soccer has become on the African continent? My answer is, well, partially. Football was introduced to Africa by missionaries in the mid-19th century. At the time, it was played mainly in church premises, school fields and all other open spaces that belonged to the early Christian evangelists. The game was played by these missionaries and much later their students (in their schools) and domestic staff. Money was never mentioned anywhere near the football pitches. It was purely recreational and those that got involved in it either as players or spectators just got involved for the heck of it. Even if there was a monetary part to it, it was that which players spent on getting their wears for the game-shirts and boots. But 200 years down the line, things have changed considerably.

I recall the beginning of international football in Nigeria with the assembling of young men who went on a tour of the UK in 1949. Subsequently they were known as the 'UK Tourists'. History has it that they played barefoot; of course they travelled to the UK by sea! There was nothing of a standing national football team until independence. At this time, other African nations were also becoming independent and started organising football around the same time.

Most of the players of the freshly independent African states were playing the game as amateurs; they held other jobs and soccer was done part-time. So there was no issue of a sign-on fee, weekly wages or endorsements. From what we were told, they were very committed, much more than today's crop of players and the game was 'real'. They played because they wanted their teams to win, not to impress scouts or attract endorsements. Spectators went to watch just good football and not a lovely hair-do or a colourful boot. There was order and discipline in the game.

With the movement overseas of African players (the likes of Tony Yeboah from Ghana) to Europe to ply their trade, we in Africa saw the money in football and soon after Europe became the toast of all African players. Today all members of the Super Eagles – Nigeria's national squad – are based outside the country, over 90 per cent in Europe! When governments in Africa (especially military ones) saw the growing interest in soccer, they cashed in on this and spent massively on the game, mainly at world tournaments. Remember Mobutu Sese Seko's Zaire team at the West Germany World Cup in 1974 and even other Congolese of that era? Mobutu bankrolled the teams at a time when his people were one of the poorest in the world. Stability still hasn't returned to that country today!

The thinking is that when people are passionate about sport, particularly football, they are distracted and will not notice poor leadership in the country. And ever since, football in that country has been growing while human development remains as bad as it's always been; some argue it has even worsened. Even in my native Nigeria we've had leaders at the national and state levels who don't have an iota of interest in football, but because it makes people 'happy', they fund it at the expense of more critical sectors of the economy. The catchphrase 'football is the only unifying factor in the country, so pump in all the money' seems to be driving this anomaly. Every World Cup year, Nigeria's annual budget is jacked up by almost half of a per cent due to expenses incurred on the Super Eagles' preparations, yet football contributes next to nothing to our GDP (gross domestic product). Even on a global scale, the story is not much different: About 2 per cent of consumption (spending) is on soccer, yet the sector doesn't attract commensurate growth in the world economy.

There is even a more threatening angle to it now, the Champions' League and the English Premiership games beamed into Africa. It is not only snuffing life out of our local football; our youth are hooked on these leagues. Seventy per cent of young people (mainly males) go to cyber-cafés to know the time of the Chelsea–Arsenal game rather than pick the internet's brain for meaningful information from what is widely acknowledged as the biggest repository of knowledge since the beginning of life. Sports dailies now sell more than traditional broadsheets. These boys stab and kill each other when their 'teams' lose. It's pathetic that these clubs are only useful to shareholders and my brothers may never visit England, let alone get any dividend from Manchester United or Newcastle United.

Some boys drop out of school now to follow in the footsteps of Didier Drogba or Samuel Eto'o because there is so much money to be made. The brand of soccer played today is a disservice to the world, not least Africa. Can someone turn the hand of the clock back to 1949?

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