African football is like planting maize to harvest wheat

How time flies. We are already in the final stages of the Fifa 2022 Senior Men’s World Cup in Qatar. As usual, the 54 states of the African continent are under represented in the later stages. Having started with the mandatory five slots allocated by Fifa, only two went to the knock out stages.

Football they say is a game where 22 men are chasing one piece of inflated leather. The African 22 do not fare very well in the World Cup like the 22 from Europe and South America or Asia. Our greatest achievement so far has been getting to the quarter finals. Cameroon did so in 1998, Senegal in 2002 and Ghana in 2010.

But before we go farther in the debate, it is in fact almost a misnomer to call them ‘African’ teams. Most of the players ply their trade in the major football leagues in Europe where they develop, excel or do reasonably better than their counterparts at home. They only come home to join the group and then proceed for the World Cup as a team. 

The individual brilliance and potential cannot be doubted. Africa has produced many footballers on the world stage -even if some did not make it to the World Cup like George Weah of Liberia and Abedi Pele of Ghana. Then you had Roger Milla, Thomas N’kono, Samuel Eto’o Fils of Cameroon, Didier Drogba of Ivory Coast, Asamoah Gyan of Ghana etc.

Around this time of the tournament a lot of column space tries to get to the crux of the matter as to why African teams just play brides maids with a few flashes in the pan.

Good football, delivers highly skilled footballers and teams that deliver silverware. Good results in most circumstances bring a healthy financial return. Financial returns mean there is considerable investment in both training of manpower and facilities like equipment, technology, healthcare, nutrition, fitness gyms and pitches. It calls for good and focused, result-oriented management and discipline. 

Sustained success in football and sport in general is not about the match day. It is a result of long-term effort that begins in academies that helps sport people grow up with the sport, over the years so that it becomes part of them. The magic that we see on match day is the hard work of years of training and practicing basic things like passing, ball control, dribbling, shooting, positioning, anticipating etc.

Experience is not acquired overnight. Even if you have good money and pay the players well. You must plan for it by doing specific things spread out over a long period of time. Every requirement has to be specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time bound. We must know our strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats that we face and address them. There should be key performance indicators to tell us if we are moving, stagnating or retrogressing.

It means that we have to bring the synergies of various professional managers -not just those who know the mechanics of football- together.

But above all it is something for long-term serious planning. It means having optimal financial resources spread over a long period of time.

Unfortunately, when failure calls, like it does every four years we fall back to the tired arguments, key of which is that there is low investment in the game on the continent. The major culprit is the African government which, typically having the deepest ‘institutional’ pockets does not invest that much. So we can only get this far.

It makes sense until you learn about the sort of money most of the sports associations deal with. Many of the international bodies like Fifa actually send good money to local federations. Governments do so too. If optimally utilised with the only goal being development of the game, African countries can turn around the game and sports in general, over a considerable period of time.

But we work in a context that does not allow long-term investment in anything.  As a head of a local sports body you are not sure if the government that supports you will be overthrown or will turn against you or a godfather blesses someone else to replace you. Yet you are operating in a situation where the state has all but collapsed, leaving behind gaping hole in the social safety net - if at all it exists.

No good affordable healthcare system or schools. You take care of your own housing and plan your own retirement, which you should insure against inflation and the destruction by a sudden war, violence or an anti-corruption probe.So you have to take very good care of yourself first. This is not as easy as it sounds. When the money comes in from whichever source, you take your bit. Then like a thief running away with huge wads of money while being chased, you throw some as you run, to distract those pursuing you.

So the sports minister, the parliamentarians, the technocrats; and all those who should be auditing you get their share and go blind. The media join the party too. Tickets to fly to different places in the world with some per diem, on the pretext of covering sports, comes in handy. Then they go mute or sing your praises. Every year you hang in there and keep your electorate happy enough to bring you back for another term. Then you act as their father Christmas in sharing the loot.

It is only logical that when a person is overwhelmed by existential pressures that they have to overcome by dubious means, they can only be straight forward and morally apposite by accident. You are always fighting to maintain a balance and finding a lie to counter another lie. The business of caring for the players comes last on the list of priorities and so do the long- term plans.

The only time people see you in action is when you are opening seminars and sports clinics where you make empty statements for the good of advancing the game. You may also distribute some sports equipment here and there as a gesture of ‘taking the game to the grassroots.’ Then you cook the books to show accountability.

Whatever outcome is expected from serious investing money continuously, then suffers. We end up where we are right now. Expecting a harvest were we have not seriously invested and thinking that lacklustre organisation may by some good luck bring us good fortune. Or that the opponents may make a mistake for us to exploit and go through somehow. No one, not even in the Bible, the book of miracles; ever planted maize and harvested wheat.  African football is trying to perform a miracle.

Twitter: @nsengoba