From the river to the sea
The latest in my occasional series on the connection between sports, mostly football, and politics.
At least six players born on the African continent (eight if you count the islands off the African coast claimed by Portugal and Spain) will play in the Euros from June 14th to July 14th. They are Eduardo Camavinga (France, born in Cabinda, Angola), Brice Samba (France, born in the DRC), Yvon Mvogo (Switzerland, born in Cameroon), Breel Embolo (Switzerland, born in Cameroon), Marc Guéhi (England, born in Ghana) and Danilo Pereira (Portugal, born in Guinea-Bissau). Technically, Ayoze Pérez (Spain, born in Tenerife) and Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal, born in Madeira) were also born in Africa. The information is from a Google map created by a user, sviraman.
Given the rightward drifts of the European public, I am not even sure this trivia counts for much. For the last few Euros and World Cups, I can't actively get myself to root for European nations anymore. At most, I am interested in the progress of certain players.
In addition, six players were born in South America (including France’s Mike Maignan, born in French Guiana, and Pepe from Portugal, born in Brazil). No players in the competition were born in North America, the Caribbean, or East Asia, but one player was born in Central Asia (Waldemar Anton from Germany, born in Uzbekistan) and one more from the Middle East (Giorgi Tsitaishvili, from Georgia, born in Israel).
• Whenever England plays Germany, English fans sing “Ten German Bombers,” an offensive chant mocking German casualties during World War Two. Ahead of the Euros, a German police chief said while police can’t stop them from singing it, he advised them “don’t be dicks.” Palestinians have no comment.
• Mexico played Brazil in a friendly match in the US on June 8th. As often, the football on the pitch might fade into obscurity (Brazil won), especially considering the ongoing challenges within Mexican football. Unfortunately, the match was marred by the recurrence of homophobic chants from Mexican fans, prompting a temporary halt to the game in the 55th minute. This is of course par for the course for Mexico. In March 2024, the Concacaf Nations League final between the United States and Mexico was suspended twice — for the second straight year — because of homophobic chants by Mexico fans. Per ESPN: “FIFA has repeatedly held the Mexican soccer federation responsible, handing out fines and closing stadiums for games after incidents in qualifying matches for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups and for Olympic qualifying.”
• Per the Nottingham Post: “A Nottingham Forest fan has been banned from football matches after racially abusing Heung Min Son and Tottenham Hotspur fans during a game at the City Ground. The man … was identified after police traced the holder of the ticket for the seat he sat in at every game … A child who was sitting nearby later said he didn't want to go to football games anymore.”
• The BBC uses “dictator” and Samuel Eto’o together in a headline about the very public battle in Cameroon over who should coach the men’s national team. There are no good guys in this case. Last week, the Belgian Marc Brys was removed as national team coach, only to be reappointed within 48 hours. The Ministry of Sports, which pays the salaries of coaches and players and has a history of interfering with the national team (in defiance of FIFA rules), prefers Brys, while Eto’o’s believes the country can afford a more high-profile coach.
• I have a chapter in a new book,“Black Arsenal: Club, Culture and Identity,” the first dedicated exploration of the club’s relationship to contemporary Black identity and culture. The footballers Ian Wright, Paul Davis and Kevin Campbell (update; now late), and the journalist Amy Lawrence, contributed chapters. The academic Clive Nwonka is the editor. The book will be published on 29 August, and pre-orders are now available.
• The first international cricket match in North America was played between the USA and Canada in 1931. The US is hosting some of the T20 World Cup games this year. The US’s shock win in a pool game against a burned-out Pakistan last week will boost those here hoping to make money off the sport.
• Talking of money. Real Madrid’s new 2,800 square meter flagship store on the grounds of its home stadium has a daily turnover of about €400,000. More than 11,000 people visit the store every day. The average shopper spends € 100, which is the price of a replica team shirt. The best-seller is Jude Bellingham’s replica shirt. Add €35 to have his name and number screen printed. It costs €150 for the original (authentic) team shirt worn by players and €185 if you add the name and number screen printed on.
• Still on money. Matvey Safonov, the Russian national team goalkeeper, is blocked from transferring to Paris SG from his club, Krasnodar, in Russia because he "... is facing a ban on leaving his native country due to unpaid alimony. Engaged in divorce proceedings, Matvey Safonov owes his former partner no less than 60 million rubles (or approximately 600,000 euros), which prevents him from traveling outside the Russian Federation until his debt is cleared."
• In 2012, Ellie Mae O'Hagan, in The Guardian, wrote about liberal media’s fascination with English footballer Joey Barton, quoting philosophy and faking a French accent, masking the fact that he was quite violent and reactionary. Her point was about the snobbery of Barton’s liberal admirers and their obliviousness to his aggression and violence: She writes: “It is automatically assumed that Barton has violent tendencies because he's a working-class man who has chosen to play football for a living. So when he shows signs of intelligence, it's treated as a sign of reform: intellect is the preserve of the gentlemanly middle-classes.” A friend of O’Hagan’s from Liverpool, where Barton was from, said to her: “We all knew Joey Barton around here, but I had no idea he was any good at football." By 2023, Barton was complaining about women as football pundits. One of Barton’s brothers is in prison for killing a black man with an axe. Barton called this murder a “scrap,” a fight involving no weapons. Now comes news that Barton will face a new criminal trial for grabbing his wife by the throat and kicking her in the head in June 2021. The case was previously dismissed after his wife refused to testify against him.
• For now, Liverpool FC backed off from scheduling Premier League matches outside the UK. The club’s chairman flighted the idea but was shot down by the owner, John Henry; the objections from the most organized sections of their local fan base may have, for now, postponed that inevitability. Chelsea and Manchester United fans have said much the same thing. The owner may have been spooked by the backlash to the Super League idea and that of Project Big Picture, both aimed at giving the big European clubs more control over the running of the professional game. But as the Guardian reports, this is the last we’ve heard of this: Fifa “… will launch a working group to make recommendations on the matter, taking it one step closer to realization (and)… La Liga wants to move matches to other countries by 2025, and many major clubs are interested in such a proposal as they look to maximize revenues by tapping into new markets.”
• Palestine has an outside chance to qualify as one of the eight Asian representatives at the 2026 World Cup in the US. From the river to the sea.
• When it comes to Saudi Arabia, European football’s morals have its prize. Famously, the LGBTQI advocacy of Jordan Henderson (Al Ettifaq, $38 million) stopped once he set foot in Saudi Arabia. Then Georginio Wijnaldum (Al-Ettifaq; $10.8 million) told Dutch journalists: “Everybody has an image of Saudi Arabia, but I have to say, for me, it has been very different. I must see how society works and what is and is not allowed. Whether or not gays are allowed somewhere? That is something I didn’t see. From what I have seen, everybody is welcome in Saudi, and life is actually very good … I’m having a lot of fun. A lot of people have a prejudice about Saudi Arabia, so I don’t know if people will believe me. But I decided to be honest and tell my story.” No one believes him. Now it’s Kevin de Bruyne’s turn. When asked about the ethics of playing club football there, De Bruyne, 32, told a Belgian outlet last week who can say no to earning money in one or two years that you’d have to work elsewhere for your whole career: "Every country has good and bad things. Some people will explain why you shouldn't go there, but you can also tell them about Belgium or England. Everyone has bad points. Who knows, maybe they will tell you about the flaws of the Western world."
• Finally, my essay on Benni McCarthy’s beginnings in Cape Town’s gangster leagues was published in the latest issue (Number 53) of football literary magazine The Blizzard. Here’s an excerpt: “I had always heard stories about the gangster leagues, but documentary evidence appeared hard to come by. There is very little photographic, audio, and film evidence of the leagues. This is not unusual when trying to recover aspects of black sports history in South Africa. But, in the case of the gangster leagues, it may also have to do with something else: that they were associated with crime and violence. Add to this the negative role and perception of gangs, gangsters, and gang leaders in Cape Town. Cape Town has the dubious distinction of having South Africa’s highest murder rate. With gangsterism playing a central role in those statistics, most people on the Cape Flats have a negative perception of the gangs, so it would be no surprise if they either don’t want to talk about the gangster leagues or remember it at all.”