Though I’ve written previously on Pitch Invasion about women’s soccer in Africa, I don’t claim any special expertise on this specific event—particularly as I write from my distant home office on another continent.  But given all the attention to the men’s World Cup in South Africa last summer, and various vague claims that the event would help develop the game at all levels, I do find myself intrigued by the women’s championship as an opportunity to fulfill that promise.  Also, given the many social, historical, and structural obstacles to the women’s game in Africa, I just admire the pluck of many African women’s players who do succeed.

Nevertheless, although it will determine Africa’s two representatives to the 2011 Women’s World Cup in Germany, the 2010 African Women’s Championship promises to be a relatively modest endeavor (the eight competitors are South Africa, Tanzania, Nigeria, Mali, Equatorial Guinea, Cameroon, Algeria, and Ghana). Not only are none of the 2010 men’s World Cup stadiums being used, but almost all the games are being held at one 15,000 seat stadium in the far eastern townships of the greater Johannesburg area.  That stadium was refurbished for the men’s World Cup and served as the training base for New Zealand—though it’s most notable World Cup moment may have been when cooking smoke from the nearby township forced the Kiwis to modify their training. (Another small neighboring stadium will be used for two of the last group stage games, presumably to accommodate concurrent kick-offs).

Even these arrangements were only made public last month—a circumstance Peter Alegi rightly identified as an “inexcusable delay [that] makes it more difficult for fans and media to participate in and cover the premier event in women’s football on the continent.”  As if to substantiate that point, as of the week-end before the tournament begins the official tournament page on the Confederation of African Football (CAF) web-site had only been updated once since September—and ironically that update was to announce that the deadline to apply for press credentials had been extended.

CAF does have the excuse of not having much practice in hosting continental championships for women.  Though there were official competitions in 1991 and 1995, those were played on a home and away basis, so the first centrally hosted tournament was played in Nigeria in 1998.  Since that event, the African Women’s Championship has been hosted biannually in either Nigeria or South Africa—with the lone exception of the 2008 tournament hosted in Equatorial Guinea.

Equatorial Guinea also happens to be the only country to win the continental women’s championship besides Nigeria—which had won every African women’s championship prior to 2008, and is the only African team to attend every Women’s World Cup.  In my mind, this raises two interesting questions: why has Nigeria been so good, and how could Equatorial Guinea be their only competition?

The Champions

The reasons Nigeria have tended to be so good is probably at least partially attributable to the simple fact that Nigeria is a populous place with a lot of talented women.  According to a 2003 case study by Martha Saavedra, “women have been playing football on a regular basis in Nigeria only since 1978” but since there have been several iterations of reasonably successful women’s clubs and leagues—which is more than can be said for many African nations.  In addition, Saavedra notes, the relative strength of Nigerian women’s soccer may relate to a more general “history of activism among Nigerian women, especially in the South.”  More recently there has been some concern that the full women’s national team has lost some of its dominance, and that broader problems in Nigerian soccer may hurt further improvements, but there are also signs of hope: as was noted here on Pitch Invasion over the summer, the Nigerian U-20 women were an impressive success ending up as the first African team to reach the final of a FIFA World Cup of any sort.

The case of Equatorial Guinea is harder to figure, partially just because it seems to be a generally curious place.  I’ve never been there, and don’t feel able to fully pass judgment, but in the world of African politics Equatorial Guinea is known mostly for suspicious oddities.  A former Spanish colony comprising a tiny set of islands and land near the coasts of Cameroon and Gabon with only around 600,000 people, it has massive oil income that the United Nations computes to a GDP per capita higher than that of Italy or Bahrain (at $30,627), but a human poverty index worse than Haiti (according to IRIN News, estimates suggest that “60 percent of its population lives on less than US$1 a day”).  This extreme discrepancy is often attributed to massive corruption, particularly among its dictatorial ruling family—whose son Teodoro Obiang is known for buying a $35 million mansion in Malibu and paying $700,000 for a spin on a yacht to impress sometime girlfriend/rapper Eve, and whose patriarch has been in the news for promoting a multi-million dollar UNESCO prize to publicize science and perhaps distract people from his poor human rights record.  The problems of the ruling family even emboldened a group of mercenary South African plotters with few local connections, linked famously to Margaret Thatcher’s son, to attempt a (failed) coup in 2004.

So how did a place like Equatorial Guinea end up hosting a women’s African championship tournament, and becoming the first winner other than Nigeria?  The event generated so little media attention that it is almost impossible to know, but I’d be interested to learn.  I’m particularly intrigued by how a country of only 600,000 people—which wouldn’t even qualify as one of the top ten most-populous cities in Nigeria—manages to produce a continental class football team.

I do know what the Nigerians said: that the Equatorial Guinea women’s team succeeds by not limiting itself to women.  In another curious twist that was mentioned by Jennifer Doyle here on Pitch Invasion, and discussed in a bit more detail on the TransGriot blog, the Nigerians claimed at least two of Equatorial Guinea’s players were men (a claim that doesn’t seem to have any evidence other than appearance).  Sadly, these claims seem to get flung around fairly casually in African women’s soccer—in a 2009 story that TransGriot described as “Nigerian Gender Chickens Coming Home To Roost” a Nigerian women’s player was excluded because “while being given her medical exam for the national team they discovered she was intersex.”  These and other events led to the claim that CAF was going to institute ‘gender testing’ before the 2010 championship—something that I’ve not seen any news of since 2009, and suspect fell prey to the realization that ‘gender testing’ in sports is far from an objective scientific process (something particularly loaded in South Africa after last year’s messy Caster Semenya controversy).

So barring the gender bending argument, my best guess is simply that Equatorial Guinea has actually decided to support women’s soccer—possibly as a part of a larger strategy of soccer diplomacy that includes its status as a co-host of the 2012 men’s African Cup of Nations (with Gabon—another oil rich neighbor).  If you’re rich and dictatorial, what better PR boost than good old-fashioned sport success?  Though this is just a guess, it is supported by the silver medal performance of a youth women’s national team from Equatorial Guinea at last summer’s Youth Olympic Games.  How else could a tiny oil dictatorship whose prior athletic fame derived entirely from mocking ‘Eric the Eel’ have turned itself into a presence in African soccer?  And that is not meant only as a rhetorical question—does anyone out there know the whole story?

Other Stories and Legacies

One other curious story from the 2010 African Women’s Championship that may actually get some documentation is the first appearance of Tanzania’s ‘Twiga Stars.’  In fact, the only two films I know of about women’s soccer in Africa are both set in Tanzania: in addition to an excellent 2007 documentary on women’s soccer in Zanzibar (which combined with Tanganyika in 1964 to form the United Republic of Tanzania), it now seems another film-maker has been following the Tanzanian women’s national team (if you’re curious, check out the goal around 1:02 of the trailer—it’s a cracker).  As part of their reward for qualifying the team earned a sponsored trip to Seattle to train and play local teams—ending up with a mixed record against amateur women’s teams from Washington state.  Given their record against the locals in Seattle, the Twiga Stars may not yet be world class on the field—but the fact that they were there at all, and that Tanzania seems to be starting to take women’s soccer seriously, seems well worth documenting.

Ultimately I suspect that each of the eight women’s teams at the African Women’s Championship in South Africa represents many more fascinating stories that we’ll never see.    Even South Africa, with its relatively developed infrastructure and a history of some support for women’s soccer, is struggling to get Banyana Banyana to an international level (at last summer’s U-17 Women’s World Cup South Africa finished the group stage with 2 goals for and 17 against, including a 10-1 drubbing by Germany).  So, as Peter Alegi notes, beyond its limited press attention perhaps the most important question of this particular tournament is: “what will be the impact of this tournament on the development and growth of South African (and African) women’s football at junior, amateur, and elite levels?  This is a crucial question given that the number of female players — mostly black — continues to grow alongside their ongoing marginalization and exclusion in a male-dominated football world.”

Because if the legacy of the South African World Cup isn’t to develop the game at all levels, we’ll not only miss some good soccer stories—we’ll miss good soccer.

It also marks the first time the United States has failed to reach the semi-finals of the U-20 Women’s World Cup; despite an outstanding tournament from forward Sydney Leroux, the US team seemed to lack a spark and looked vulnerable at the back in its games.

But the big achievement here is for African women’s football. Ghana were the other African team in the tournament, and acquitted themselves well — they tied 1-1 with the US in their first game, showing an impressive combination of power and skill, the US having to work extremely hard to equalise in the second half. Though Ghana then lost 4-2 to a strong South Korea team, they beat Switzerland 2-0 in their last game to finish third in the group.

Nigeria, meanwhile, tied with both England and Mexico, and beat Japan 2-1 to reach the quarter-final stage, where they will face Colombia and have a very good chance of reaching the semi final stage (incidentally, Colombia became the second South American country to reach the semi-finals of the U-20 Women’s World Cup). Given the mess that is the Nigerian Football Federation (NFF) and their management of both men’s and women’s national teams, reaching the semi-finals is all the more impressive for the “Super Falconets” in that context, with a notable lack of financial and administrative support from the NFF.

Still, to the NFF’s credit, the senior Nigeria team has long been the strongest in Africa, one of a handful of countries to reach all five Women’s World Cup tournaments, and dominant in African continental competition. Next summer in Germany, we might well see an African women’s team become the first African team to reach the semi-finals of a senior FIFA World Cup tournament.

BBC Newsnight understands a member of Uefa’s Disciplinary Services Unit – which is responsible for investigating match-fixing – first became suspicious during qualifying rounds of the World Cup.

It is alleged that certain Nigerian players came forward and said their team was vulnerable to manipulation.

On the morning of Nigeria’s first match, he alerted Fifa’s new Early Warning System, set up to look for signs of match-rigging, of his concerns.
German journalist Christian Bergmann also had a call just before the first Nigerian game of the tournament from a Uefa contact who said there were suggestions that “some players from the Nigerian team are actually involved in some form of manipulation”.

In their second game of the tournament, Nigeria were strong favourites to beat Greece and took an early 1-0 lead.

But after just 33 minutes Nigeria had a man sent off and Greece subsequently scored their first ever World Cup goals to win 2-1.

As ever, we turn to Declan Hill for the informed commentary, and he follows up on his earlier concern about the laxness of FIFA’s “early warning system” to look out for match-fixing by commenting that it does little to protect players who come forward:

FIFA’ early warning system is practically useless. They don’t investigate. They don’t protect the players. If you are a whistle-blower and you come forward to expose your fears, don’t expect protection and don’t expect the situation to improve.

And again, as he did earlier in the tournament, Hill makes clear that the root of the problem remains the fact that players performing at a multi-billion dollar sporting event, elite professionals in the world’s richest sport at its apex, aren’t guaranteed to be paid the money due to them because FIFA refuses to pay players directly:

The Nigerian Football Association has been so utterly incompetent for so long that many Nigerians have been desperate to close it down and start again. The Nigerian government got involved. Perhaps more tellingly, the great star Jay-Jay Ochoa pleaded with FIFA not to pay the World Cup bonus to the Nigerian FA. His fear was that the money would disappear before it could reach the players.

The basic scenario that leads to corruption at World Cup tournaments is that many of the national football association are so incompetent they cannot guarantee their players will receive any salary or bonuses for playing in the world’s biggest tournament. Until FIFA stops this exploitation, pays the players directly and establishes a proper investigative unit (as UEFA has) they expect lots of these types of stories.

FIFA’s glitz and riches will be on display this weekend in its showcase pair of final World Cup games. But we should not forget its hesitation in tackling this issue. If we think the failure to deal with the need for technological aid for referees in key decisions until it’s too late is bad, it pales in comparison to the unwillingness to deal with a threat that may well eventually allow a major scandal at a World Cup to unfold due to the failure to take enough preventative action on the threat of match-fixing.

The World Cup, because of the scale of the gambling on it, is the easiest event to hide unusual betting patterns on. And evidence continues to grow that until FIFA takes the action urged by Hill — “pays the players directly and establishes a proper investigative unit” — the World Cup will remain vulnerable to being undermined in a far darker way than just by innocent officiating errors.

NEXT, published in Lagos, Nigeria. 1 July, 2010.

I love a World Cup (any World Cup) for the rare opportunity of putting whole imagined nations on public display.  Though the main event in South Africa is still eight months away, one junior version (U-20) just finished in Egypt and another (U-17) is just about to begin in Nigeria.  The fact that all these events are in Africa is an extra bonus for the inquiring mind; Africa represents so much that is powerful and so much that is perplexing about both soccer and society.

Some of this was on display in last Friday’s U-20 World Cup final from Cairo, where Ghana’s ‘Black Satellites’ defeated Brazil in penalty kicks after playing a man down through 83 scoreless minutes.  Like many things to do with world football, the game was not pretty but it was symbolic.  As the FIFA English commentator proclaimed enthusiastically at the dénouement: “African winners on African soil!”  It was the first time an African team had won a U-20 World Cup.

Ghanaian coach Sellas Tetteh immediately claimed the victory for the continent: “This is a wonderful historic event for Africa.  Now Africans can believe in themselves that they can do it… We’ve shown them the way. Africa will surely have a lot of hope and confidence (at the World Cup) that they can do it like we did here.”

Although Tetteh was referring to next summer’s feature event in South Africa, the general question of whether belief, hope, and confidence are enough to win major tournaments is interesting to consider approaching the start of the U-17 World Cup in Lagos and Abuja on Saturday October 24^th.  My own less sanguine suspicion is that talent and resources matter quite a bit more.  Unfortunately, Ghana itself won’t be in Nigeria to find out.  But 24 other teams will be playing in eight different Nigerian cities through the final on November 15^th.

As I did last month in an alternative preview of the U-20 World Cup in Egypt, I’m taking advantage of the opportunity of the U-17 World Cup to look at the world through a mix of soccer and armchair geography.  The idea is best encapsulated by Eric Hobsbawn’s eloquent words: “The imagined community of millions seems more real as a team of eleven named people.”  It also draws inspiration from Matt Weiland and Sean Wilsey’s excellent edited collection of essays and miscellany related to the participants in the 2006 World Cup.

So, below I offer impressions of Nigeria and Malawi (the African nation closest to my heart—having been a Peace Corps volunteer there for two years in the 90’s) as examples of two “imagined communities,” and then draw on an idiosyncratic collection of ratings and rankings to create a statistical miscellany on the groups in the tournament.   At the end of this post is a table of the draw with FIFA rankings for the full national teams, population numbers, human development rankings, Gross Domestic Product per capita, per capita alcohol consumption, life expectancy, and infant mortality.  The only system here is to try and raise unlikely questions about soccer and society, and what else is a World Cup good for?

Some Stories

The Host: In its soccer and its society Nigeria, the most populous nation in Africa, represents both the potential and the perils of the continent.  Nigeria has won three of the twelve U-17 World Cups, been a finalist in two others, won the gold medal in the 1996 Olympics, achieved what I believe to be the highest ever FIFA ranking for an African team (5^th in 1994), and is the only sub-Saharan African nation to host a FIFA World Cup: the 1999 youth tournament (then called the “FIFA World Youth Championship”).  It has also been the subject of much controversy regarding the “real age” of its youth players, and there have been many questions as to whether it will be ready to adequately host this 2009 U-17 tournament (the 1999 tournament hosted in Nigeria was actually a make-up after FIFA had controversially revoked Nigeria’s hosting the 1995 tournament, taking it to Qatar because of uncertain fears).

Beyond soccer, Nigeria is home to many of Africa’s most brilliant minds, including a stunning collection of writers such as Wole Soylinka, Chinua Achebe, Ken Saro-Wiwa, Ben Okri, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Chris Abani, and Uwem Akpan.  But it also has a controversial reputation for corruption, it has struggled to manage vast oil wealth to the benefit of broader development goals (as have many oil-rich nations the world-over), and has suffered dramatic religious violence as it negotiates a national population split nearly equally (and regionally) between Muslims and Christians.

Deserved or not, the reputation of Nigerians across Africa is that they are intense and clever—in ways that can be used for good or for ill.  The recent critically acclaimed movie District 9 was telling in this regard; in a science-fiction version of Johannesburg South Africa aliens are locked into a segregated township where their potentially nefarious interests are catered to primarily by savvy Nigerian gangsters.  In the movie’s disturbing allegory about xenophobia, purposefully set in South Africa, the people most negatively stereotyped are the Nigerians.  This implication was not beyond the notice of the Nigerian government, who asked the makers of the film for an apology as part of their own effort to “rebrand” the nation.

Nigerians are also infamous the world over for internet scams—known as ‘419’ fraud with that number referring to the relevant article of the Nigerian Criminal Code.  Also called “advance fee fraud” the scam has become the brunt of many jokes about Nigerian princes who will share their wealth if only a small advance is sent to the right bank account.  But the not so funny reality is that the scam became popular because it worked: some clever Nigerians bilked some not-so-clever others for a good deal of money.  There is a fine line between the “swindler” and the “entrepreneur.”

If national teams do reflect national culture, then all this must make for some confusing on-field tactics.  Combing immense talent, uncertain motives, and an intense edge would seem to be an explosive brew.  But, in many ways, it also sounds like a lot of fun—and watching Nigeria’s Super Eagles is often just that.  Nigeria is not only the host of this U-17 championship, they are also the defending champion (having won the 2007 title in South Korea over Spain through penalty kicks).  Though their preparations seem to have been somewhat tumultuous, that is often the way the Super Eaglets roll and I wouldn’t be surprised if they still take home advantage.  While there is sure to be some drama and some criticism, as Nigeria Football Federation president Sani Lulu Abdullahi recently responded when questioned about recent Nigerian performances: “I don’t give a damn, because I am serving my God and Nigerians.”

The Junior Flames: Malawi’s national team is known as “the Flames”—but you’d have no reason to know that since this U-17 World Cup in Nigeria will be the nation’s first ever FIFA tournament.  In fact, most people have few reasons to know Malawi for much of any reason (though Madonna’s odd interest in the place along with books about windmills have raised its profile some).  The beauty and the tragedy of Malawi is that it’s been a relatively peaceful, stable country with little significant infrastructure and few valuable resources other than its warm hearted people.  In fact, in the statistics I compiled below Malawi only stands out for having the lowest per capita annual income (around $800 per year—which is dramatically little compared to $47,000 per year for group mates the USA) and the second lowest life expectancy at 48 years (second only to hosts Nigeria).  In many ways Malawians have had little of what may be the most undervalued quality in both soccer and national development: luck.

When I lived in Malawi between 1996 and 1998 it was just emerging from 33 years of autocratic rule by “His Excellency the Life President of the Republic of Malaŵi, Ngwazi Dr Hastings Kamuzu Banda”—an idiosyncratic dictator and anglophile who kept his people relatively safe and well-fed as long as they did not cause any trouble.  In fine “big man” style Kamuzu had managed to name virtually everything in the country after himself, including the national stadium in Blantyre.  But when “democracy” arrived much of his cult of personality was dismantled and the national stadium was renamed Chichiri for its relatively bland neighborhood.  And then in 2004 it was re-re-named after Kamuzu—a seeming reminder that the more things change the more they stay the same.

In 2009, however, Malawi’s luck—at least in the ways of world football—seems to have changed.  First, the Junior Flames qualified for the U-17 World Cup due to the good fortune of Niger being disqualified for using over-age players.  And now, the senior Flames are on the verge of qualifying for their second ever African Cup of Nations (their only previous appearance was in 1984) based on being positioned third in a group of four.  Though their recent tie with Ivory Coast was mostly noted internationally for securing Ivory Coast’s place in South Africa, Malawians celebrated the fact that Didier Drogba and friends only needed one point.  As it stands, both the junior and senior Flames will have qualified for their respective tournaments after winning a single game in group play (the senior team needs just one point in their final game at the wonderfully alliterative Ouagadougou Burkina Faso on November 11^th).

While Malawians have long been passionate about football, these fortuitous circumstances arguably constitute the greatest year in their sporting history.  And when the Junior Flames take the field to play the US U-17’s on October 29^th in Nigeria at Kano’s Sani Abacha Stadium (another curious tribute to a former president identified as one of the world’s most corrupt leaders), I hope luck is again on their side.  In fact, I owe a debt to Malawian soccer for reminding me about the importance of luck: in an otherwise unremarkable academic paper I once wrote comparing American and Malawian mentalities towards soccer, among my main conclusions was that Malawians have a much better appreciation for the inevitabilities of the game.  Where Americans tend to have a deeply internalized sense that soccer is about self-improvement and competitive merit, Malawians tend to recognize that sometimes stuff just happens.  Luck matters more than we like to admit, and here’s hoping that Malawi starts getting all it needs and deserves.

Some Statistics

The Group of Death: Apparently the term “group of death,” now ubiquitous in any group based tournament, was originally coined by Uruguay (Group F in Nigeria) manager Omar Borrás to describe his team’s group at the 1986 World Cup.  Borrás went on to get himself banned from a second round match due to his team’s ”ungentlemanly conduct” and reports that ”the referee was molested and even threatened.”  While molesting referees would seem to be quite a damaging habit, Borrás more awkward legacy may be the never-ending debates about which teams actually have to suffer through the “group of death.”

To avoid subjective questions about the quality of U-17 teams from diverse parts of the world, and at the risk of sounding morbid, the sobriquet could be taken literally.  Doing so is admittedly depressing.  Looking at statistics such as life expectancy and infant mortality highlights the injustices of a world where children born in rich countries such as Spain (Group E in Nigeria) and Italy (Group F in Nigeria) can expect to live an average of 80 years (where only 4 out of 1000 children will die before age 5), yet reside on the same planet as children born in poor countries such as Burkina Faso (Group D in Nigeria) and Malawi (Group E in Nigeria) who will be lucky to live past 50 (where approximately 200 out of 1000 children die before age 5).

So for me talking metaphorically about the “group of death” offers a helpful reminder that soccer is just a game—none of the groups in a FIFA tournament are actually a matter of life or death.  And, frankly, I have no idea which group will actually be most competitive on the field.  But I do have some other more lighthearted statistics…

Overachievers and Underachievers: The most basic statistic for any FIFA tournament is a team’s world ranking; despite all the problems with their ranking system, it does offer a standardized gauge of how all the world’s teams compare.  And while much goes into national footballing excellence, the most basic factor I’ve been able to discern for success is disappointingly simple: population.  The more people, the more potential players, and the better chance of putting forth a pretty good eleven.

For me this uninteresting equation becomes more interesting when considering outliers—the countries that seem to do either much better or much worse than their player pool should allow.  Of the countries in Nigeria, the three that stand out as overachievers in this regard are Uruguay (which ranks 132 in population but 25 in FIFA and is in Group F in Nigeria), Switzerland (which ranks 94 in population but 13 in FIFA and is in group B in Nigeria), and the US’s new BFF Honduras (which ranks 96 in population but 35 in FIFA and is in Group A in Nigeria).

On the other side of things, there are few countries in Nigeria with significantly lower FIFA rankings than might be predicted based on population—most of those guys probably didn’t bother to qualify.  The only two that seem to be of any note are Iran (which ranks 17 in population but 62 in FIFA and is in Group C in Nigeria), and Japan (which ranks 10 in population but 40 in FIFA and is in Group B in Nigeria).  If I had to guess I’d say the lesson here is that hard-line Islamic governments and aging populations with long life expectancies and low birth rates are bad for soccer success.  But that’s just a guess.

The Designated Drivers: A World Cup is often described as an international party, which made me curious about the relative popularity of that nearly universal party lubricant: alcohol.  Though the players in Nigeria should be too young to partake, in many parts of the world adult fan culture is defined partially by drinking and carousing—something which is alternately a point of pride and shame.  Just looking at the statistics, it appears fans who like alcohol with their soccer may find good company at this U-17 World Cup: in terms of per capita consumption of alcohol Nigeria slightly edges New Zealand (Group D in Nigeria), only trailing Switzerland, Spain, and grand “champions” Germany.

In fact, the data would suggest that few travelling fans in Group A should plan on driving home or operating any heavy machinery: with the slight exception of Honduras it seems the Nigerians, Germans, and Argentines all like to get their drink on.  In fact, those looking for peace, fellowship, and designated drivers may be best served watching games in the groups with teams from the Islamic world: Algeria and the United Arab Emirates report miniscule amounts of alcohol consumption, while Iran just reports absolute zero.  Come to think of it, maybe that’s why they underachieve in the FIFA rankings?

There is, believe or not, a significant correlation for the teams in the U-17 World Cup: for these 24 nations, the more a country drinks the higher its FIFA ranking.  But there must be some confounding variables—so back to the stats!

Andrew Guest writes weekly for Pitch Invasion. He is an academic social scientist and soccer addict living in Portland, Oregon. Having worked (and played) in Malawi and Angola, he has a particular interest in Africa. He can be contacted at drewguest (at) hotmail.com.

A gnawing and suspicious paradox lies at the heart of African national team experiences in world competition: African teams tend to do much better at the youth level than they do at the senior level.  Take the fact, for example, that African teams have won 5 of the 12 FIFA U17 World Cups (with the 2009 version scheduled to be hosted by Nigeria in October and November), but not a single African team has ever made it as far as the semi-finals of a full World Cup.  There are many possible explanations for this seeming paradox, including the unfortunately reality that player development in many African nations is hindered by weak national leagues and the poaching of players by wealthy European clubs.  Among the most common explanations, however, is simple: cheating.

The claim is that many African youth players are not really youth players at all because African nations freely send overage players to age-group competitions and are rewarded by the benefits of additional physical maturity and experience.  This claim is so pervasive that Nigerian blogger George Onmonya calls the use of a false age in African soccer “overage syndrome,” claiming (along with other African bloggers) that it is widely accepted among African players to have two ages: a “football age” and a “real age.”   Onmonya writes it is not uncommon in Nigeria for players to have as many as ten years difference between their football age and their real age: “A friend of mine who once played in the Nigerian league with Jigawa Stars told me his real age was thirty four two years ago but his football age was twenty one. He is still actively playing. He should be thirty six now and his football age twenty three.”

As such, Nigeria’s decision this summer “to eliminate age cheats” by using MRI scanning to test the age of their under-17 players was celebrated by a Reuters blogger as “the first step in ridding African soccer of a long-standing blight.” While it may be fair to describe speculation about the age of African soccer players as “blight,” the story of age in Africa is more interesting than a simple matter of cheating.  Though it may well be the case that “football age” is not the same as “real age,” both types of age are actually problematic in the soccer world.  While one might assume that science such as MRI scans could eliminate those problems, such an assumption fails when considering carefully the complicated meanings of age.

Football Age

The idea that African players and administrators manipulate age, valid or not, is a nearly constant presence in African soccer.  This summer, for example, a Zimbabwean news source announced that the reason their under 17 team had been selected for the 2010 youth Olympics in Singapore was because “Zimbabwe made history as the only country which was represented by players with the correct age group at the African Junior Championships held in March this year.” Though that particular claim may be an exaggeration (despite much speculation, Niger seems to have been the only team officially disqualified from the 2009 African under 17 championships), there is no question that many successful African youth teams have been accused of cheating by using over-age players.

Recent Gambian success in youth internationals (a phenomenon that has helped stock MLS with Gambian players such as the Nyassi brothers, Amadou Sanyang, Emmanuel Gomez, and Abdoulie Mansally), for example, has led to much speculation about the age of their players. The thinking boils down to the admittedly perplexing question of how The Gambia, a desperately poor country of 1.7 million people with a senior team currently ranked 99th in the world (having never qualified for the World Cup), could be the African under 17 champion in both 2005 and 2009?

Even beyond the circumstantial evidence, in my own experiences with African soccer age claims proved dubious at best.  When my Malawian team would travel to week-end road games a favorite pastime involved evaluating the age claims made by the national newspaper’s weekly player profile.  Each week the sports section interviewed one of the Super League’s star players, and each week that player’s listed “age” provoked laughter and incredulity amongst my Malawian teammates: “Ok, this guy claims he’s 20 years old—but I watched him play for the national team when I was in primary school.  So that would mean he started making national team appearances at 12!?!?  Not possible.”  But everyone understood what they were doing.  For Malawian players youth meant opportunity—the ultimate dream of getting picked up by a European club, or if not that, maybe a contract for real money with  South African club or at the least an extended life span in the Malawian national player pool.

In responding to a similar problem in South African soccer, University of Johannesburg sport sociologist Cora Burnett argues that the fundamental issue here is poverty: “Given the [nature] of poverty in a society where dishonesty often pays — high criminality, dubious ethical standards and ‘contaminated’ values — and a sports fraternity with pressures to succeed, overage participation needs to be unpacked.”  Though I agree poverty may play some role, this assessment to me sounds unnecessarily harsh.  While it is hard to argue that creating a football age is not a significant issue in African soccer, I would suggest that “unpacking” the issue also requires some critical inquiry about the meaning of “real” age.

“Real” Age

Establishing a “real” age for purposes of age grading youth sports is necessary as part of efforts to promote reasonable competition, but in many ways it is as problematic as creating a football age.  The first problem should be familiar to anyone who has ever been involved with youth soccer, or anyone who has been to a junior high school dance: kids mature at different rates.  Remember the dance in seventh grade where a fully mature 5’8” girl was dancing with your squeaky voiced 4’10” guy friend, while the early maturing tough guy in the class was biding his time in the corner stroking his goatee?  They were all the same chronological age, but very different biologically and, partially as a consequence, often very different socially.

Freddy Adu

Likewise, regardless of various speculations about Freddy Adu’s “real” age there is no question that when he joined DC United he was more physically mature than most 14 year olds.  That may well have been a simple matter of random biological chance, but it doesn’t change the fact that it is now clear he was well past his growth spurt.  It’s not Freddy’s fault, but it does raise perennial questions about whether it is prudent to invest millions in very young athletes who may well have peaked when other young athletes at the same “real” age have years of growth to come.  And when you go to Africa the questions start to get even more complicated.

One of the historical challenges of documenting age in Africa is that in many communities across the continent exact chronological age is not all that important.  This is not just a problem for soccer tournaments, but also for demographers and those interested in population trends.  According to one scholarly analysis by David Cleveland “Africa is probably the most difficult region of the world for which to obtain good estimates of numerical age” for a variety of reasons, including the fact that it is often more functional to sort people by biological and social maturity rather than by the exact date of their birth.

Though this is changing some with the expansion of Western health care systems and their dependence on chronological age, historically many African societies thought of people in “age sets” defined by their abilities, capacities, and social roles rather than by their exact birth date.  An 18 year old who is married with children would be treated as of a different age than an 18 year old finishing school and playing soccer.  In other words, the fact that Freddy Adu identified as a full professional at 14 would have more significance than the fact that he was born in 1989.  Cleveland notes “in terms of reflecting biological and social reality they may, in fact, be more meaningful than Westerner’s numerical ages.”

The fact that many African societies are more interested in biological and social reality than chronological reality is compounded by the fact that many African children are born without official birth certificates.  Again, this is changing with the spread of modern health care systems and literacy (most urban, and even many rural, Africans today would be born with some documentation), but the fact that not having a birth certificate is relatively common does create some space for negotiation.  I know when I was in Malawi the rumors were that the European coach running one of the national youth teams (working through the German national aid agency, which had a whole program devoted to sending soccer coaches to developing nations—a story for another day) was sending the players he wanted to take for a summer European tournament to the passport agency with ages he assigned them for his own convenience.

This trick is also much rumored across Africa, a rumor encouraged by claims of corruption in some of the African bureaucracies assigned to issue official papers.  George Onmonya, the Nigerian blogger, explains that “You can walk into any immigration office in Nigeria today, forge documents at the nearby business centre, change your name, place of birth, date of birth, pay seven to ten thousand naira instead of the official price of about five thousand five hundred naira for international passport and within hours you have completed the whole process.”  The bottom line in all this is that although numerical age might initially seem to be a straightforward matter, for reasons both natural and nefarious “real” age is a questionable concept.

Is Science the Answer?

Based on my questions about the nature of “real” age, it should come as no surprise that I am skeptical of claims that science such as MRI bone scanning is “the first step in ridding African soccer of a long-standing blight.”  In fact, with a little research it becomes clear that MRI bone scanning also raises as many questions as it answers.

The basics of the bone scanning technique proposed for use on Nigerian U17 players involves creating a Magnetic Resonance Image (MRI) of player wrists to be evaluated by radiologists who would ostensibly determine “skeletal age.”  One problem here is that “skeletal age” is really just a measure of biological maturity, and people mature at different rates (think again about that junior high dance).  Another problem is that the scanning techniques require approximate interpretations that are inevitably imprecise.

One group of scientists from the University of Cape Town in South Africa, for example, specifically investigated the applications of the tests to sport and found that when nine radiologists evaluated the wrist scans of males between 14 and 18 years of age (chronologically) they could not accurately establish age: “In 1 subject the difference between the chronological age was underestimated by 2.4 years.  Clearly the method lacks the level of precision required for the purpose of screening players at age-group tournaments where a player 1 day older than the defined age is regarded as ‘too old’ for the competition.”  In fact, while the Nigerian source claims that the tests are accurate 90% of the time, other sources say the scanning has an error margin of plus or minus one year—which would make them functionally useless for FIFA competitions.

The South African scientists also note that the standardized measures used for the most common wrist scanning technique are based on samples of white English children and may not be directly comparable for children of other ethnicities.  In less scientific terms, the point is that such tests quickly trigger delicate questions about race, ethnicity, and bias.  As one Ghanaian-American commentator noted in 2005:

The intention of FIFA to using such imperfect technology points to the fact that nineteenth-century, Western scientific-thinking may still be right here with the rest of us in the twenty-first century. And this pretty much, unfortunately, reminds those of us avid students of Western scientific history of the racist science of Craniometry, or Craniology, which invidiously sought to “objectively” establish the relative intellectual inferiority of the non-white or non-European species of humanity – particularly continental Africans and their direct descendants around the globe – vis-à-vis the purported super-intellectual Aryan species of Western Europe and the European diaspora.

It is also quite striking to observe that the threatened use of MRI technology comes at a time that non-European nations appear to dominate the championship echelons of the Under-17 World Cup soccer tournaments. And so it may not be entirely gratuitous to factor in the question of race as a significant motivating element in FIFA’s intention of using MRIs to ascertaining the exact biological ages of players.

My own humble opinion is that this is less an issue of race than of the convenient delusion that age is a simple matter of science and birthdays.  I understand that youth international tournaments need to establish cut-off points and try to enforce them, but it is also important to recognize that those cut-offs are really just arbitrary markers based on our own cultural ways of thinking about age.  As such, while acknowledging that using “over-age” players can be problematic for player development within a country, it is also worth thinking carefully about whether African youth teams that “cheat” by using players of uncertain chronological ages are really doing anything worse than making up for having to play by someone else’s definition of “real” age.

Watching today’s entertaining match, I found myself mulling over the way the word “profligacy” was used in FIFA’s summary of that last game againt Germany:

The African champions dominated much of this match and had enough chances to win a few games, but their profligacy in front of goal – which had already been in evidence in their 1-0 defeat to Korea DPR – once again proved their undoing.

Warning: I am an English Professor by trade. The author meant something like “wasted goal scoring opportunity,” a situation that writers about football find themselves needing to write over and over again, and so one’s vocabulary stretches along with that striker’s foot, and like that prodigal daughter who discards the perfect pass and misses the wide open net, sometimes the writer, too, goes wide of the mark. All that aside, profligacy is an odd word choice. Its first meaning is:

1. Licentious or dissolute behaviour; debauchery; spec. (in later use) sexual promiscuity. [Oxford English Dictionary]

Given the centuries-old racist and sexist traditions that inform representations of African women, it is not a word I would choose. I am sure the FIFA writer didn’t mean to draw from this (the primary) meaning of the word. Better to use the word in a statement like “Manchester United’s behavior off the pitch is a good example of the profligate lifestyle of contemporary footballers.”

Even the secondary meanings for “profligacy” feels inappropriate as a description of how the Super Falcons play:

2. a. Reckless extravagance, prodigality; (also) a wasteful or extravagant act. 2. b. Lack of moderation, excess; great abundance, profusion. [Again, this is from the O.E.D.]

On this point, my objection isn’t political, but technical. In footballing terms, I would say “profligacy” is more apropos of the striker who strikes too soon, of the player who sends the ball too far down the pitch. (In which case, one might tag Brazil for its profligacy in the first match against Germany in which we saw lots of long balls just launched away.)

If the Super Falcons suffered against these teams – the very best teams in the very toughest group in this tournament – it was, I think, more properly because they were too conservative. Which is perhaps counterintuitive, because the Super Falcons play with a lot of style and imagination. But style isn’t the same thing as wastefulness. If that were true, Argentina and Brazil would have the weakest records in football. And England would have qualified for Euro 2008.

A team of goal scorers and a lame back line may be accused of profligacy, in which case we can turn to Tottenham as a fine example. But the Nigerian women’s team plays more like Arsenal, who would never be called “profligate” with the parsimonious Wenger at the helm. We all know the purse strings are kept tight chez les Gunners. And then we have the style of play: lots of jaw dropping short little passes right up to the goal. Spectacular to watch. But, as we all know, eventually the odds go against these genius little moves up the field. Every pass is a pass that can go wrong or be interfered with. Every moment you hold onto the ball is a moment a defender has to catch you. The problem, here, then, is not “letting go” but holding on.

I am wondering if, in the case of the Nigerian women’s team, this isn’t about confidence, and the opportunities a team has to play together. You didn’t see Nigeria, for example, making a whole lot of medium or long passes into space – Germany’s Stegemann scored off of exactly that kind of optimism (“I know she’s on her way, and will be there by the time the ball gets there”), and Marta and Cristiane work off of exactly this kind of confidence in each other (“Marta – draw those three defenders off me, and then cross me the ball!”).

Nigeria’s problem isn’t profligacy – it’s the opposite. A fear of letting the ball go. And with so much riding on them – the only African women’s football team at the Olympics (and, therefore, the only all black team on the tournament’s rosters), who can blame them.

Want to talk about parsimony? Let’s talk about FIFA’s ambivalent support of African football over the years, and then let’s talk about FIFA’s even more ambivalent support of women’s football, and, well, marry those two histories: et voila! You have the special burden of being the only African women’s team allowed to take the world stage. Who can blame them for playing a somewhat skeptical game.

Well, there you have it, my reading of one sentence in a FIFA match report. This is what happens when a feminist English professor becomes a football fan.

Before I sign off for the day, let me just say some things about today’s game. The Super Falcons have super fans! You could hear them shouting, cheering, and singing alongside their own brass & drums band from the start to the finish of the match. And while plainly Cristiane is player of the match, I’d like to give a shout out to Nigeria’s Faith Ikidi who got in some technically perfect tackles and was just a hornet in both of the games I was lucky enough to see. She’s one of the defenders of the tournament in my eyes.

Cristiane’s bicycle kick goal brought tears to my eyes. So amazing, so perfect – she was surrounded by defenders and still got a controlling touch and just sent it over her own body and into the net. I was rooting for Nigeria, but I’m a fan of the beautiful game, and I don’t know what’s more gorgeous & inspirational than a goal like that. (Note the Nigerian player who nearly takes Cristiane’s foot in her face!)

So – here it is:

Of course, many of the players from African nations are more and more familiar to those of us who watch European football religiously. Is this why there seems to be more interest in the Cup than even two years ago amongst your average world football fan? Or is it due to the internet, shrinking our horizons just enough this time?

This is the place to put any thoughts you have about the tournament as it kicks off today in Ghana. Or will you be boycotting it, because you think Sepp Blatter is right that the priority should be the needs of club football?

And perhaps most importantly, have you picked a team to root for? For me, it’s the Super Eagles of Nigeria. This goes all the way back to USA ’94 which, you might recall, is the last time England failed to qualify for the World Cup.

As soon as I saw Nigeria play, they won me over. I don’t want to offer awful cliches about African football, but there was something refreshing about them, particularly in contrast to Graham Taylor’s godawful England team at the time (Taylor being Steve McClaren crossed with the boss from The Office, convinced the future of football lay in the 70 yard hit and hope).

When Italy came back to knock Nigeria out in the second round, quite unjustly I thought, it was a minor tragedy in my footballing life. So I will be cheering on the Super Eagles, as soon as I can figure out how to watch the games on the internet here in America. . .

Day One

The opener, Ghana vs. Guinea, has begun. Even though I purchased a subscription to the group stage on jumptv.com, it’s not working so I’m watching pixellated figures on Sopcast instead. Daryl is doing a fine job liveblogging over at the World Cup Blog right now telling me what’s actually happening, so join us there if you’re interested. I’ll also add some observations in the comments below, and you should, too. 0-0 at half-time, despite Ghana’s absolute dominance.

1-0: Ghana score from the spot, with a somewhat dubious penalty, but it’s hard to argue with the scoreline.

1-1!: Guinea score, a powerful header tying it up. Unfair on Ghana, but the sight of Guinea’s fans dancing deleriously in the stands with joy was a heart-warming moment.

2-1 Ghana: Muntari, from thirty yards out in the 90th minute, rips off an absolute cliched belter, screamer, or whatever else you want to call it, into the top corner. Ghana goes wild.

Morocco beat a poor Namibia side in the opening day’s other game, in front of a disappointingly empty stadium. View the goals here.

Day Two

Ivory Coast-Nigeria: Perhaps the most glamorous clash of the first round is going on as I type — Ivory Coast, starring the likes of Didier Drogba, against my favourites, Nigeria’s Super Eagles. It’s 0-0 in the first half, with Yobo doing a fine job containing Drogba. Join Daryl at the World Cup Blog for liveblogging action right now.

An hour later, and Ivory Coast have edged a solid win. The two teams were both so powerful and athletic — who knew Obi Mikel could be made to look normal — they cancelled each other out for large portions of the game. But a magic dribble by Kalou was enough for the Elephants to sneak it, and deservedly so.