World Affairs
  What football means to Africans  Rageh Omaar
  Published 31 January 2008
    
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  The premiership boasts some of the best African footballing talent
  At the close of the 20th century, the most revered living symbol of world football made an extraordinary prediction. Many western pundits must have thought the great Pelé had lost his marbles. Pelé said that before the dawn of the 21st century, an African nation would win the World Cup. He was wrong, but the optimism and belief that African nations were on their way to becoming a part of the international elite of football were spot on.
  Nowhere is this reality more on display than at the African Nations Cup, reaching its scintillating final stages in Ghana. African stars are now so ubiquitous at the biggest European clubs that the fact that they are from some of the least developed countries on earth is barely noticed. Instead, the likes of Emmanuel Eboué, Samuel Eto'o and Michael Essien are seen by their legions of adoring, young and predominantly white fans just as breathtakingly gifted players.
  For me, this alone is a startling change in the game in the past 20 years. I can't tell you how different it is from when, as a young black football fan growing up in the UK whose family was from Africa, I knew that every Saturday afternoon black British players (let alone African players) would be subjected to vile abuse, as much by their home supporters as the away fans.
  Today, no other international league boasts such a preponderance of the best African footballing talent as the Premiership. That is why so many of Britain's top managers are angry that they have to lose key players to the African tournament, especially at this critical juncture in the long season, when the Premiership is entering what is, in effect, the final home strait and clubs can ill afford for players to be absent.
  Yet the overwhelming majority of African players who have travelled to represent their countries in Ghana have made it clear that, for them, there is far more at stake in this tournament than medals and trophies. Cameroon's André Bikey, who plays for Reading, summed it up: "To Africans this is as big as the World Cup," he said. "It's a chance to give some joy to our people. Our people don't care what we do at our clubs - only what we do for our countries is important."
  Despite their very different and unimaginably affluent lives in the west, many African players are still very much rooted in African communities. They are seen not simply as sportsmen who have made the big time, but as social, economic, and even political, models to aspire to. In this sense, players such as Lucas Radebe of South Africa or George Weah of Liberia were national figures whose wealth and fame went well beyond football.
  Weah is a particularly good example of this phenomenon of the African soccer star appealing to national aspirations beyond the field of sport. His was and still is one of the most explosive talents in the sport to emerge from the continent. Arsène Wenger, who has brought over more African players than probably any other European manager, still says Weah is the signing of whom he is most proud, having enlisted him for Monaco in 1988.
  In 1995 Weah was named both European and World Footballer of the Year. He was repeatedly approached to play for France, but insisted on playing for Liberia at a time it was being torn apart by one of the most vicious and under- reported conflicts in Africa of recent times. He didn't stop there: he funded the Liberian FA and its players and training from his own pocket. Asked why, he would reply that these were commitments from which he couldn't escape; it was expected of him because he was still a part of the society and had many relatives there.
  The African Nations Cup is important on many levels. It is not just a place where tomorrow's Drogbas, Kanus, Yakubus and Essiens will be spotted by European club scouts and the 16,000 journalists accredited to cover the tournament. The cup symbolises differing outlooks in the west and Africa about the importance of football to nations and ordinary people. It's a reminder that although wealth and fortune are facts of life in football and an important motivator for players, there are dreams and aspirations at the heart of the beautiful game that transcend money.
  It's about the magic of having heroes. The reason why it is so important in Africa is that it shows the millions of young fans, who probably don't have enough to eat most days, who probably have no shoes on their feet and little education, that, like Samuel Eto'o, they too can make an impact on the world.
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