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 Published
August 23rd, 2010
From the
last FIFA World cup 2010 tournament in South African, comes
yet another indication of the benefits of the round lather
game. It seems like it is now possible for social scientists
to use world cup tourney to feel the temper of nations and
by extension rank the mood and stability, back home, of
participating nations.
A team that never scored any goal in the group stage shows a
very unstable, dysfunctional, unhappy and disorganized
nation back home at the time of the tournament. This state
of the nation is then carried over into the sub
consciousness of the participating team and erodes the team
spirit which is much needed in soccer; leading to abysmal
performance . If we go by this assumption, it will look like
nations such as France, Nigeria and Cameroun were having
some problems at home during the FIFA organized World Cup
tournament in South Africa between Jun 11 and July 11 2010.
The hopelessness of the French nation was depicted by the
attitude of the players as epitomized by the action of their
captain.
In the other hand, a teem that scored some goals at the
group stage but could not advance to the next stage reveals
very troubled nation back home. Going by this assumption,
again, it would appear that USA and Britain were having some
skirmishes back home at the time of the tournament.
Whereas USA was battling with Gulf of Mexico oil gush and
containment of the runaway General, Britain was battling
with austerity measure which did not even spare her Monarch.
On the other hand, teems such as Argentina, Portugal, W.
Germany, Uruguay, etc depicted nations that are still
enjoying some measurable stability at home. The football
handlers of these nations seem to be enjoying free hand in
running of their football. Maradona of Argentina seemed to
be single handedly determining what happens with Argentine
world cup team. This may not be far from what obtains in
Portugal and W. Germany at the time of the tournament.
Black Stars of Ghana’s beating of USA’s Stars and Stripes,
to advance to the next stage, clearly showed that Ghana was
more peaceful and stable than the USA at the time of the
2010 FIFA World cup tournament in South Africa.
What was baffling was why none of the South American flag
bearers that showed an early good start did not get to the
quarter finals. As for the African teams, there is not much
surprise - even though the tourney was in their soil -
because generally speaking African rulers have not realized
that there is a connection between good governance and
national development.
In the Nigerian case, what the President Goodluck Jonathan
lead government did was to try to ban her flag bearers in
the tournament for two years from international engagements,
a decision which they rescinded as hastily as they did in
taking it. One would have expected a pragmatic leader to try
and discover a relationship between the team’s abysmal
performance and their psyche, which is governed by actions
of government; good or bad and which President Jonathan is
the arrow head. A good question President Jonathan should
have asked himself before the hasty ban was, is the team’s
abysmal performance directly related to his own abysmal
performance at home or the dysfunctional state of affairs
within the Nigerian political space?
The President of Nigeria wanted to use Nigerian’s extremism
in soccer to score cheap point but, unfortunately, it back
fired due to pressure from FIFA and murmuring within the
polity.
In order to circumvent these direct impact of state mood on
the players’ well being and fitness, football handlers
should learn to start insulating their teams from the
happenings back home when once they are out of their
countries. Psychologists could be employed to handle the
team mates while government representatives should come to
camp to give a tainted picture of the true state of the home
affairs as different from what the players left. A tainted
picture clearly indicates that the nation is not doing well.
So after the tournament, the nations whose flag bearers came
out with impressive performances and results - as a result
of the tainted picture - should try to fulfill and
accommodate in their respective countries those pictures
that were used to give their teams a stabilizing impetus.
All these will culminate in using soccer as a tool for
national development.
Chris Onyishi
Enugu State, Nigeria
ctekchris@yahoo.com
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