Different views and thoughts are being heard about football these days. Some people believe that there are many other worries to talk about in their daily lives.
They ask what use football is to folks who are not even sure where and how they will get their next meal. Some others value football as nothing more than a group of 22 madmen frolicking and running after a leather bag filled with compressed air.
Still others wonder why the wave of emotion is transformed all of a sudden to a pandemic seizure among fans, instigating them to trade heavy punches that often land on jaws or noses that will soon be soaked in blood. These exchanges of physical torments do sometimes extend to dismantling armchairs to convert them to armaments for breaking necks or cracking heads, heads that according to some are half-empty.
There are, however, others who take football as a source of income in one way or another. In the developed world, football players signing contracts with big teams fetch seven digit figures for their clubs and hundreds of thousands for themselves by way of weekly wages.
For many of the folks who reduce football down to its nuts and bolts – a game where 22 youngsters run after a ball for 90 minutes in an effort to put it in the net – the outlay of that much money is just nonsense and crazy. In the eyes of these people, the world is getting football crazy and does not know what it is doing with its earnings, if that money is indeed genuinely earned and not won by gambling, that is.
And there are those who feel sentimental equating the victory of a national team with feelings of pride, sovereignty and expression of national identity. This was best manifested in the Ethio-Sudanese match held last year to qualify for the African Cup of Nations held in South Africa. The slogan that was reverberating from place to place via the media was about the ability to qualify for the games after 30 years of failure.
On the eve of the match, people from all walks of life had come to the stadium and had spent all night singing and dancing around bonfires at least 18 hours ahead of time. Many endured a heavy downpour and chilly weather, wrapping themselves in warm clothing. The sentiment was incredible, if not crazy.
This sentimental tendency grew into expressions of identity by wearing the tricolour jerseys and caps, and chanting a new song and tunes that brought fans and spectators in unison. Some enterprising businessmen were even able to make money out of the sudden irruptions of national sentiments.
The football federation incumbents have even made some efforts to benefit from the unexpected wave of emotions. First class tickets were being sold at a thousand Birr apiece to watch any football match in the country, perhaps an all time record.
All these new developments were obviously the results of the relentless efforts exerted by all levels of the actors involved and the whole chain of the football bureaucracy, including journalists, the community which includes the players, the coaches, the spectators and the relevant government officials and their concerted efforts.
But we should not be carried away by sentimental expressions and the dangerous feeling of complacency.
Football is not a simple group exercise as some would have us believe. Although a far-fetched parallel line could be drawn between basketball and football in that the main idea is to compete to put the ball in a ring or behind goalposts, it takes a lot of thinking.
In this regard, a lot remains to be done at all levels. Take the role of spectators, for example. Most spectators tend to take over the role of coach and seem to offer their free services, like giving orders and instructions to players, including kicking the players of the rival team. Apart from shouting and whistling at any wrong play, they use bad language to demean the referee for any decision he takes to penalize those for a bad play. They also insult people supporting the other team. These insults transcend the immediate victims and include members of their families, usually mothers and wives or even aunts they wish to lag down.
These days, football has taken a new position since the Ethiopian National Team came through the hard competition for prequalification. No other issue seems to float around offices, business centres, schools, media offices and the corridors of the Ethiopian Football Federation offices. The question of electing new officials in the Federation Administration has been cornered to a sideline, at least for the moment.
People are airing their personal hopes and wishes about the fate of the Ethio-Nigerian coming matches in the back and forth feat. The Nigerian football coach, while asserting the superiority of his team over the Ethiopians, cautions that the Super Eagles should not underestimate their rivals. Many observers take the coaches’ warning as nothing more than a mental game.
The Ethiopian coach, Sewnet Bishaw, vehemently asserts that he has no place in his mind for such war songs and self aggrandizement. He says that his team has come a long way defeating rival teams.
He knows too well the Nigerian squad and respects them as much as they deserve it. But he underlines that he has prepared members of his team to stand their ground firm and play as best as they can without giving in to any such biases and prejudice.
There are those who find little in all these details of football, whatever it may mean to anybody. At the other end of the line of the qualifying players and their growing opportunities, they see millions of children in the villages deprived of playgrounds where they could play with their rag balls.
Some of our clubs allocate huge funds to pay for expatriate and home contract players although nobody can explain why they do that. Most of these clubs seem to be subsidized by government offices that do little or nothing to build or expand the necessary infrastructure and provision of training facilities.
On the other hand, some of our football players are marketable in the international football arena. This is good for them and those youngsters who want to follow suit. Whether or not the contract amount of money correlates with their talent is something else.
At any rate, the upcoming match between the Nigerian Super Eagles and the Ethiopian Walyas will decide which of the two teams will join the World Football Championships to be held next year in Brazil. Over two decades or so, Africa, with a population of over a billion and home to some of the world’s star players, is represented by only five teams. Let God spare us from lame excuses like altitude, temperature, biased referees, indigestion, poor fields, insufficient support from spectators and the like.
Should the Walyas win the match, the credit should go to all Ethiopians. If, however, the team happens to lose, then they must be ready to endure finger pointing and criticism like a village dog straying into a churchyard, as the old Amharic saying goes. Good Luck to our team!
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