Haiti: How to Help

Words continually fail to articulate the devastation that Haiti has suffered after last week's earthquake. Both help and hope remain all too scarce in Haiti's capital Port-au-Prince and the surrounding areas hardest hit by the earthquake.

I bring up Haiti's predicament on this blog because I recall a recent New York Times' "Goal" article on how the Sporting Chance Foundation had been working to use football to improve the lives of Haiti's children. To that point, the charity had raised $100,000 to provide 60 scholarships so that local kids could attend school (most Haitian schools are private and require tuition, which puts them out of reach of many kids and their families).

I only hope that in the aftermath of this catastrophe Sporting Chance and other like organizations can continue their work to improve educational opportunities for Haitian youth. In the meantime, you can support Haitian relief efforts by texting "Haiti" to 90999, donating $10 to the American Red Cross in the process.

Togo's Terror in the Context of Africa's First World Cup

Football, as has been mentioned at length on this site, is a tremendous vehicle for social and political change. It is not, however, a sui generis solution to all upheaval, particularly that of the violent variety, as, unfortunately, was the case with Togo's national team.

The side was travelling by bus through the rebel plagued region of Cabinda in Angola on the way to their African Nations Cup game there, when gunmen opened fire on the bus killing three (the driver, an assistant coach and a team spokesman) and injuring nine people, including two players.

CAF's reaction to the incident (essentially that the team should have travelled by air rather than by bus) sorely misses the point. If it is not possible for the tournament organizers to guarantee the safety of players and spectators with a reasonable degree of certainty then it is incumbent upon them to move the event to a place where such assurances can be made. To jeopardize the lives and health of others, not to mention that of the game, is not only unacceptable, it is inexcusable.

Furthermore, such actions do irreparable damage to the event at hand (Ghana is now thinking of pulling out its players, while the papers are abuzz with news of the tragedy), which already does not enjoy the greatest support among club managers, whose players miss crucial matches in the European club calendar, but they also have negative implications for this year's World Cup in South Africa, by ostensibly validating the concerns about security that have already gained traction in the press.

It is understandable Angola wanted to host the tournament; it is still inconceivable that CAF awarded it to them.

Peacemaker

Sometimes it doesn't even take a game, just a single player, to stop war. Particularly if that player is (arguably) the greatest to ever play the game. This was the case with the incomparable Pele, who played in a 1967 exhibition match in Lagos, Nigeria, while that country was plunged in a brutal civil war.

Remarkably, the warring factions called for and successfully observed a 48 hour truce, just so fans from both sides could see O Rei do Futebol play. Here again football brought together that which war had torn asunder.

We must now ask who will carry this mantle of peace in the new century? Not too long ago, the greatest player of the last decade, Ronaldinho, got 90,000 to stand on their feet everytime he touched the ball at Giants Stadium, but recently he has been eclipsed on the pitch by Portugal's Ronaldo and Argentina's Messi. The question is: can either of those two exceptional talents win the hearts and minds of the footballing masses; and, if so, are they willing to use their considerable clout in the manner of Pele?

Quotable

"What is soccer if not everything that religion should be? Universal yet particular, the source of an infinitely renewable supply of hope, occasionally miraculous, and governed by simple, uncontradictory rules (laws, officially) that everyone can follow. Soccer's laws are laws of equality and nonviolence and restraint, and free to be reinterpreted at the discretion of a reasonable arbiter."

- Sean Wilsey, author and columnist

Bono Says

In a new Op-Ed piece in the New York Times, U2 frontman and RED founder, Bono, came up with a Top 10 list for the new decade. Number 10 on that list was "The World Cup Kicks Off the African Decade."

Essentially, Bono argued that South Africa's ability to prepare for and eventually stage a tournament of this significance is a harbinger of continued improvement in infrastructure and, thus, should also herald a new era of substantial foreign investment in the country and continent more generally. This can all be done in the hope that these investments will shore up democracies that meet international standards of transparency and the dictates of a truly free market economy.

At the very least, World Cup 2010 has the potential to be transformative both politically and economically. How many other sporting events can claim that?

Football and Nationalism

On December 22nd, Catalunya played in and won a friendly against Argentina 4-2. On it's face the result is not remarkable, but for the fact that in the game the players were emissaries of the Catalan nation, as opposed to the country of Spain.

Let's back up a little. In theory, a nation is described as self-defined social and cultural community, whereas a state is defined as a geopolitical entity that serves as the overarching political organization of the nation. The nation-state then is predicated upon the coterminous existence of the political and cultural communities in a given territory. Problem is this is not always (even often) the case, even in Europe where the concept originated. Just take the case of Great Britain, within which the separate nations of England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales exist.

Yet, this still doesn't explain how Catalunya came to have its own national team, even given the fact that the nation and the state do not coincide in its case. So how did Catalunya get a sanctioned "national" side? Well, after the demise of Franco's regime in 1957, the 17 semi-autonomous regions of Spain were allowed to set up their own "national" teams; though none has proven as competitive or vibrant as Catalunya's. Headlined by stars such as Victor Valdes, Gerard Pique and Carlos Puyol and coached by none other than the masterful Johann Cruyff himself, Catalonia's national team has still been forced to play most of its matches during the summer or in La Liga's Christmas break period. Nevertheless, the group has produced spirited displays against top level international competition...something other FIFA sanctioned national teams have failed to do.

So what do Cruyff and Catalunya mean for the "national" team? As of now perhaps not so much. Catalunya cannot apply for FIFA membership and participate in international competitions unless and until it is a member of the United Nations (which itself is unlikely to occur). In its place, Barcelona has been considered Catalunya's de facto national team. But the renewed vigor with which Catalunya is competing on the world stage is an interesting development to say the least, forcing us to reconsider the question: what is a nation? The answer matters both for football and for politics.

The Predicament in Palestine

It is a tale of two territories. In a recent "Dispatches" piece in World Soccer, James Montague contrasts the fate of football in Gaza and the West Bank.

In Fatah's West Bank, Jibril Al Rjoub, Palestinian Football Associaton [PFA] president, has "arguably overseen the most successful period in the West Bank's history," with game attendance regualrly reaching 15,000-20,000.

Alternately, in Hamas-controlled Gaza, football is dying a slow, painful political death. After Hamas took control of the area in 2007, they seized the top football clubs, seeking to use football as means to acheive their political ends. In particular, Ibrahim Abu Salim, the vice-president of the PFA notes Hamas' military wing continues to persist in their attempts "to have control and channel the minds, the thinking, of the youth" through football.

If political infighting between the Palestinian factions has thwarted regular competition, it has not hampered the desire of players, coaches and fans to organize their own games with some help from the United Nations Development Programme.

One of those games was the Gazan championship between Al Shate Sporting Club, a mixed team of Fatah and Hamas association that represents the 80,000 refugees in the camp of the same name, and Al Salah, a new, Hamas aligned team. The match ended 2-0 in Al Shate's favor. For a brief moment, the players successfully removed the beautiful game from the throes of political manipulation and returned it to the people, specifically the people of Al Shate refugee camp, who triumphantly commandeered the trophy from the players and paraded it around in the streets.

For that day, Al Shate were champions of Gaza and the "reality of life in Gaza melted into the background."