Shane Smith doesn’t usually take the easy route. Kind of a hipster Richard Engel-Christiane Amanpour hybrid, the co-founder of VICE Magazine can easily get you nodding, laughing or dropping your jaw at his audacious attempts to uncover stories off the beaten path. Once you start watching his VICE Guides to places the State Department probably suggests you should avoid, it’s hard to stop watching.

So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that listening to Smith recount tales from his adventures is fascinating. But a recent, relatively innocuous-seeming comment made me flinch. Waxing lyrical about the various levels of hell he’s visited, Smith said that there are no cell phones or internet in the Congo, which is mind blowing if you think about it – a massive country, the size of the United States east of the Mississippi River, cut off from all modern forms of communication, internally and with the rest of the world. That’s eerie.

But there’s a small problem with his statement. It’s simply not true. I’ve used and seen people use both of these modern luxuries in the Congo. In fact, I received a text from a friend in the Congo a few hours ago. Are these luxuries widely accessible to all? Attempting to answer that question will probably give you a more accurate portrayal of cell phone and internet availability in the Congo.

When Smith dons his VICE Guide hat, he is in the business of selling hell. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Smith produces much-needed, in-depth stories that few outlets seem interested in or willing to pursue. He has profiled a former warlord/cannibal-turned-preacher (General Butt Naked) in Liberia to give insight into the transitional nation, uncovered North Korean labor camps in Russia, and provided a rare and surreal look behind the North Korean curtain. He takes you into hearts of darkness that most people will never encounter. But it is precisely the remoteness of Smith’s subjects and the lack of access to stories for comparison purposes that make the accuracy of his presentations so disproportionately important, especially when compared to stories that receive endless mainstream coverage from outlets around the world.

When it comes to peddling despair or highlighting the ignored, precision matters. That is particularly true when coverage of a story is sparse. I point this out not to question Smith’s broader integrity. His work offers unique insights and raises many legitimate questions. But it was Smith’s single characterization of the Congo that triggered a series of thoughts about the presentation of Africa, accuracy, nuance, and, of course, soccer.

There’s a narrative when it comes to Africa that consistently focuses on negativity. Things are broken, systems are corrupt, Nigerians send bogus emails. Then there’s the overarching, constant quest for development that consistently frames fifty-four nations as a pained, huddled collective, always needing, perpetually chasing the standards of developed nations, forever walking around frowning. There are elements of truth to these characterizations, but told alone, they paint a picture that makes perfectly intelligent people draw some utterly ridiculous conclusions.

Two years ago, the 27th African Cup of Nations was held in Angola. It seemed as if more people were paying attention than in previous years, probably because less than five months later, South Africa was to host the continent’s first World Cup. With South Africa as the backdrop, safety quickly became the topic du jour, and Angola became the international test run for a tournament in South Africa, a country that has some shared history, but otherwise has about as much in common with Angola as Mexico does with Jamaica.

And then the incident happened.

Gunmen opened fire on the Togolese team bus en route to the site of their opening match. Two members of the Togolese party and the Angolan bus driver were killed and several players suffered injuries of varying degrees. It was a tragic, shocking and thoroughly depressing situation. But so was the reaction in many quarters.

The South Africa pivot was immediate. See? I knew it was dangerous down there. The connections were made. Questions were asked. “AFRICA! is dangerous” was the underlying theme, which fits nicely with the panoply of go-to African characterizations: hungry, poor, backward, etc.

These types of lazy characterizations result in a loss of nuance, most criminally perpetuated by those who get paid to report and inform yet seem to have little insight or worry about the effect their lazy aggregation of thoughts and words might have on their audience. Hearing people say things like Angola shouldn’t have hosted the African Cup of Nations because of violence in Cabinda, or that South Africa had questions to answer because of violence in Angola makes it easy to recognize how simple it is to paint monolithic pictures of vast regions, and how these portrayals over time can subconsciously influence or reinforce readers’ ideas on topics that go well beyond sport-related banter.

There are real repercussions for this kind of laziness. Reinforced narratives can take decades, if not longer, to unpack and rectify. Short and long-term damage can be inflicted on economies, national image, and individual self-confidence. And the manifestations of these narratives travel. The narratives can be the source of frustration for foreigners and people with noticeable foreign affiliation in many countries who have to repeatedly contend with ignorant characterizations of their people and homelands. They can partially explain why you can hardly have a conversation about South Africa without getting the sense that people think the place is like Vietnam in the 1960s with a better domestic wine selection. They also can explain the reaction that too easily conflated Cabinda with Angola.

But to only highlight the ignorant is slightly unfair. For instance, there was a quick backlash against the uninformed portrayal of the attack in Cabinda. One appeared here, but they were everywhere, from Time Magazine to The Guardian to The Telegraph. The prevalence of rebuttals to the ignorance raises some interesting questions: Does a high rate of rebuttal reflect an initial lack of responsible reporting? Are there stories and nuanced characterizations to proactively tell on the front end to challenge some of these simplistic, reflexive notions that are still all too common? Outside the lines, do sports writers even have a responsibility to the environment that affords them a living?

Perhaps the African Cup of Nations can play a role in painting a more dynamic picture of a continent that is far removed, geographically and contextually, from so many around the world. With every tournament, more eyes are paying attention. The spectrum of stories to tell is endless, and the tournament writes many of the stories itself. Instead of repeatedly seeing Africans in conflict, we see them playing together. Northern Africans aren’t always involved in a tussle as we saw when Moroccan and Tunisian players attended mosque together prior to their opening match. We have seen imagery of players, often from a diverse spectrum of religions and ethnic groups, competing and celebrating as a collective. Sudan just made it out of the group stages. Sure, for good reason, Sudan has been the source of plenty of negative headlines over the years (Darfur and Sudanese President al-Bashir openly mocking his arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court come to mind), but when is the last time Sudan (not South Sudan) and anything pertaining to joy has been in the news? The beauty is there if you have an interest in seeing it, but it is almost as if we’ve been conditioned to look past it as if on a constant hunt for misery.

Sometimes hell is hell, but other times hell is just a sliver of reality. Sometimes you say a place is dangerous when only part of a place is dangerous. Sometimes you say there are no phones when there are few phones. But over time, the detail matters.

Recognizing the joy, camaraderie, dancing, and celebration that occurs in many parts of Africa doesn’t suggest that serious, often life-threatening issues should be minimized. Rather, it suggests that the portrayal of a massive continent should be as robust, diverse and inclusive as its population, and that beyond the scores and line-ups, there are an infinite number of honest stories to tell along the beauty-to-tragedy continuum. Constantly neglecting the beauty to focus on the never-ending tales of horribleness skews the senses to the extent that human interest stories can lose their humanity, a phenomenon that can make the need for detail and accuracy dissipate.

The African Cup of Nations is one of those rare, joyous windows into Africa with the potential to show another side of a dynamic continent. Perhaps that is because many of its players are now global personalities. Perhaps it is because we have more access than ever to the people who have been covering African soccer for years. Regardless of the reason, that window into the soul of the continent is a significant part of the reason why I love the tournament. It’s refreshing to see African joy and celebration projected in a space that is usually reserved for despair.

With that, I’ll leave you with a goal from Zambia’s upset of Senegal, which may have given us the best celebration of the tournament so far. I won’t provide any interpretation in the hope that the moment speaks to you organically. If you listen close enough it may say something. But at a minimum, I hope it makes you smile.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-xsnUGPAKc

And yes, it’s a thing. If you want to see it live, check out Zambia’s next game.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7Gvb7m_jPw

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The ZFA claims that the Zimbabwean team was taken to a sub-standard hotel that lacked some of the luxuries the team has grown accustomed to at other fine establishments, namely electricity, water, and an adequate number of beds for the party. Although there are arguments for sleeping on the floor, in a hotel, it’s nice to know that it’s an option rather than a necessity.

The ZFA further claims that they were given a bus that broke down twice while players were in transit from the hotel to the game venue.

A Liberian Football Association (LFA) spokesman responded to the complaint, essentially claiming that the ZFA was exaggerating. CAF is investigating ZFA’s complaint.  But it does make you think about the notion of home field advantage, no? If these allegations are true, this is clearly problematic even though the alleged incidents do not seem overtly intentional if we are to believe the LFA’s explanation. But how far is too far? Surely hosts must adhere to some standard. But what is that standard?

I thought he was joking.  Several months ago, my cousin suggested that we fly to Kenya, get a bunch of people together, rent a bus, drive to South Africa, attend the World Cup, and then sell the bus and fly back to the States.  I was tempted.  Very tempted.  But at this stage in my life, and his, the trip was never very likely to happen.  Ten years ago, it definitely would have happened. In fact, I’d be on that bus right now making one bad decision after another.

Turns out he wasn’t the only one with this brilliant idea.  Apparently, seven days of travel through Eastern and Southern Africa and four border crossings is not too much to sacrifice for a World Cup.

Akamba, a public bus company in Kenya, has put together a package costing US$ 2,500 (KSh 197,500), which includes transport, food and a seven day stay in South Africa. That’s how much some people paid for just a plane ticket.  Not to mention, the trip includes stops on the Zambezi River and at Victoria Falls. For anyone trying to put this trip together themselves, you might just want to give Akamba a call to get a real African experience.

(Are there fake African experiences? Indeed.)

I just hope that these folks realize that there will be a seven day trek to get back to Nairobi.  But for now, these are just useless details that get in the way of living life. Whatever happens, these folks will have had an adventure of a lifetime before even setting foot in South Africa.

The stories of dedication are just beginning.  As we come across more over the next few weeks, we’ll definitely share.

Interested in more details about the seven day overland trip from Nairobi to Johannesburg? Check it out here.

And just for fun, below are two old school Akamba buses.  I doubt these are the ones heading to South Africa, but these would have been perfect for our trip.

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He leans forward animatedly: “The question we have all the time is whether an African team is able to win the World Cup. But the real question is whether the world is ready for an African team to become champions?

Does he believe some officials might still subconsciously favour the more traditional European and South American powerhouses over the six African teams? “I’m still a player,” Eto’o smiles. “I can’t say that sort of thing. We’ve covered a lot of ground in the last 20 years and in Europe so many leading players are African. If we prepare properly, then one of the African teams can do something special.”

– Donald McRae’s interview with Samuel Eto’o (via The Guardian)

Interesting comments by Eto’o.  Eto’o’s struggles with racism in European football have been chronicled. Unfortunately, the only reason his struggles have been chronicled is because he is a bone fide global superstar.  But there were many before Eto’o and there will be many after him.  In many ways, his long standing narrative, at least regarding race, has shifted over to Mario Balotelli and his struggles in Italian football.  In light of the very public episodes involving these two players, the question Eto’o asks is an important one:  Is the world ready for an African team to become champions?

An African team winning the World Cup would result in celebrations across much of the African continent that would last for weeks.  But beyond celebration, discussions would likely shift from narratives of poor discipline and poor facilities to questions about whether this will be the century of the emergence of African football as a global power.

However, it is important to note that success could also pose a danger to African football.  There’s a danger of mistaking a moment of success with arrival. Assuming that one triumph alleviates centuries of systemic problems is a recipe for continued poor development and misplaced priorities.  In South Africa, for example, victory won’t shift income disparity overnight. It will not educate people, nor will it create jobs in a country where one out of four people are unemployed.  So what Eto’o’s question really speaks to is how African success would change Africa’s narrative, and whether the world is really ready to embrace evolution.

Sadly, the world doesn’t do change well.  We’ve grown well accustomed to lazy and predictable narratives about Africa.  One victory will not change everything.  But it might create a forum to discuss what could be possible in Africa.  It could provide a metaphorical measure suggesting that Africa can lead and that Africa can succeed.  But does the world want new, successful leaders?  The same question can be asked about politics.  Emerging economies are often viewed as cute, little pet projects; that is, until they become actual competition for leadership positions. Then, as we see with India and China, the narrative shifts.

Is the world ready to deal with a successful Africa, one that begins to assume greater control over its resources — resources upon which the West has grown increasingly dependent?  Is the world ready for more and more of its football stars to be African?  Is it ready for more Eto’os who have the pedigree, champions medals and gall to confront journalists regularly about the realities of race in Europe?  As it stands, the media has a hard time dealing with just one Eto’o.  Imagine if they had to deal with twenty or forty Eto’os willing to take on controversial topics that typically cause discomfort and anger.

A successful Africa, in football and beyond, will present a fundamental challenge to the status quo. History tells us that world powers have a hard time dealing with perceived power shifts.  In this light, Samuel Eto’o’s question is surely a fascinating one.  Sooner or later we’ll have to deal with this issue, but if the past is anything to go by, this will only become a worthwhile topic when it happens, even though Eto’o clearly thinks it is a topic worth talking about now.  But then again, for years, Eto’o has felt that racism in European football is a topic worth talking about, and he’s had to drag the rest of the world, kicking and screaming, to the discussion.

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Rewarding love is a worthwhile endeavor.  A reward signifies acknowledgment that the recipient is seen and appreciated.  The South African World Cup is an exciting time for South Africans who have been loving soccer for decades.  But if you look closely at how Africa has reacted since 2004 when South Africa was awarded the World Cup, you will notice that much of Africa has been acting as if they are co-hosts, as if this is the first communally-hosted World Cup.  If this concept is difficult to grasp, just think of how excited Canadians would be if Mexico won the right to host the World Cup, or how excited the French would be at the prospect of an Italian World Cup, or how excited Peruvians are that Brazil is hosting the 2014 World Cup.  If the past is anything to go by, most nations aren’t excited by another country winning the right to host the World Cup simply because countries share a continent.  But across the African continent, the excitement for this World Cup is palpable.

Africa is different than other continents.  You can ask an Argentine if s/he is proud of being South American, or an Italian if s/he is proud of being European and get a very confused look in return.  But set foot in any number of African countries and ask the same question about Africanness and you’ll notice a look, not only of understanding, but one that shows an inherent pride in being African.  Even though South America has Spanish as a common thread linguistically tying most of the continent together, the sense of continental identification in South America pales in comparison to the willingness and ease of identifying as African across Africa’s fifty plus nations and seemingly infinite number of dialects and cultures.

There are historical reasons for the existence of a common African identity.  For centuries, a collective Africanness has been imposed on the continent from outside in spite of the existence of easily identifiable and unique local identities.  Africa effectively became the ‘other’ or  ‘not Europe’ and the concept grew into a continental identity that took root in a way that didn’t in Asia and the Americas.  These developments explain why even today it’s not uncommon to hear people refer to Africa as a country, or even for people to ask if you speak African, a language so difficult to master that no one can speak it. I have never heard anyone ask me if I spoke North American and have never heard people wondering if they can take classes in South American, European or Asian.  Largely out of ignorance, Africa, in many ways, has become a singular place, a singular idea, and this discourse, for better or worse, has morphed into a universally recognized but difficult to explain Africanness that is now embraced by many of the continent’s residents.

It is in this context that South Africa getting the 2010 World Cup resonates across Africa as if the tournament is being hosted by the entire continent, regardless of whether the financial benefits of hosting will reach other African countries.

This may explain why Africans are excited, but it doesn’t necessarily explain why they should be rewarded with a World Cup.  The official reason is that World Cups are now rotated between regions so everyone gets a turn.  The idea of rotating World Cups is nice gesture, but this technical concept alone undercuts the rationale for why Africa, the continent, deserves to host the World Cup.

In my travels across the African continent, I’ve grown to appreciate what it is to truly love football.  I thought I loved the sport having spent my childhood surrounded by posters of John Barnes, Ruud Gullit and Maradona.  But posters have always been relatively easy to acquire.  Without your posters, t-shirts and videos, how would you display your passion?  Would you dedicate your bike, bus, food stall or butcher shop to players or teams that will probably never come to your country to see your passion?  Imagine your local butcher (or perhaps first imagine you have a local butcher) painting his shop facade in Arsenal colors as a tribute to a team thousands of miles away without any benefits of sponsorship or partnership.  Across Africa, you will encounter countless examples of people’s pure unadulterated love for the game expressed in some very random and awesome ways; ways that put my now tattered posters to shame.

The 2010 World Cup is a reward, not just for South Africa’s dynamic soccer community or for years of marginalization during apartheid, but at a much more basic level, for the uncompromising passion and support by Africans across the continent for the sport.  This probably isn’t the underlying rationale for why South Africa was awarded the World Cup, but it does explain why South Africa’s selection means so much in the face of detractors intent on undermining the decision almost purely based on logistics.

The picture at the top of this piece is of a local butchery right outside of Nakuru, the capital of the Kenya’s Rift Valley Province.  Cesc Fabregas and Arsene Wenger aren’t coming by anytime soon to pick up fresh slabs of meat.  But that didn’t stop the owner from pulling together supplies to paint the face of his shop in Arsenal colors, complete with the Arsenal crest and a proud and pronounced shop name, Highbury Butchery, an ode to the old, historic home of the Gunners that has been transformed into condominiums.

Below is a photo of a bike from the outskirts of Nairobi leaning against the wall of a local pub where fans were taking in a full day of English Premier League action.  You can’t mistake who the owner of this tricked out delivery bike supports, nor can you mistake the fact that the bike’s owner is well aware that Arsenal has moved on from Highbury to Emirates Stadium, which is an impressive feat given that the owner is a self-described non-internet user.

When asked whether I think Africa deserves to host the World Cup, my instinct isn’t to first think of stadiums, although that’s obviously an important factor in a region’s ability to host.  Rather, my instinct is to think about the people I’ve encountered across the continent who invest so much of their lives into a sport that many, particularly in the United States, take for granted if not ignore.  Whether you’re in rural, urban or suburban Africa, you can find kids playing, adults watching, and bikes, buses and butcher shops standing as inanimate testaments to soccer’s transcendent role in daily life.  For that, Africa, not just South Africa, deserves to be rewarded with the tournament that brings life to a screeching halt.

Deserving isn’t just about logistics.  It’’s also about fundamental fairness and recognition of what people contribute, especially in proportion to what they have.  Perhaps the one consistent thread that cuts across the socio-economic spectrum in Africa is a love for soccer.  The love of the game and the ingenuity that is born out of this love doesn’t deserve perpetual marginalization; it deserves a World Cup.

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Africa has some of the best footballers in the world dominating some of the world’s best leagues.  Yet African nations tend to struggle when their players come together for internationals.  What gives?  The easy answer to this conundrum almost always begins and ends with what has become a familiar refrain; African football lacks discipline. But if that’s the case, someone needs to explain why African teams have dominated for years at the youth level. Consistently beating the best footballing nations must require a certain level of organization and discipline even at the youth level, no?  Surely the answer to this age old problem is more complex than discipline.

We talk about their football in Africa in an almost infantile way. The need for discipline is always the answer and is a characterization that extends beyond the pitch into African governance, development, and almost every other African industry. While there are plenty of examples suggesting that institutional discipline is needed in many areas, perhaps there is some nuance that is repeatedly going missing – less so in academic discussions, but certainly outside of academia, and particularly in football.

Perhaps our issue is that we always seem to look for one style to fit all.  Systems of play and styles that are suited to one team may be difficult for another team to grasp, even if the respective players have similar traits. African teams shouldn’t think that they have to emulate someone else’s style in order to succeed.  Such behavior may just continue to be a recipe for mediocrity regardless of the caliber of player.

Let me suggest that there’s another way to look at things. Perhaps it’s cultural.  Perhaps a footballing philosophy originating in a particular country succeeds when the philosophy has a relationship to that country’s way of life.  Maybe the liberal Total Football of the Cryuff-era Dutch sides worked for Holland because the philosophy matched a national culture.  Perhaps there is something to say about the successful Brazilian sides tapping into a formula that fuses a samba flavor with tactics.  This, of course, doesn’t mean that a team might not be able to win with an alternative style (e.g. Dunga’s Brazilian sides), but rather that a side’s most beautiful and efficient form may arise when players can relate to a style of play on an existential level.

The 1994 Nigerian World Cup side had a swagger that was authentically African, that matched their players, even though they were coached by Dutch national Clemens Westerhof.  Nigeria looked fantastic in ’94 when they played their style of football until Westerhof decided to play defensive, which wasn’t a style that suited the Super Eagles.  I remember yelling at the television when Westerhof withdrew a striker for a midfielder.  Up until that point, Nigeria was confidently dancing circles around the favored Italians, mesmerizing viewers along the way.

Sensing a shift in soccer is sometimes inexplicable; you just feel it happen.  But sometimes, it’s perfectly explicable, like when an attacking team inexplicably decides to turn defensive in the knock out stage of the World Cup against a Baggio-led Italian side.  It’s just like watching Arsenal when they sit back and defend.  You just know how the story is likely to end. Teams built to attack should attack.  The park the bus approach should be left to teams constructed to defend and teams coached by Jose Mourinho.

Style is a funny thing.  It always looks good from afar, but often what looks good on the outside, feels very uncomfortable on the inside. African football may not need discipline.  It might just need a tailor to create  a custom design for its frame.

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Puma somehow always seems to get it right.  I mean you can hardly go wrong when you can capture Emmanuel Eboue dancing.

Here is a  Puma commercial that takes you right into the African streets and stadiums.  It’s amazing what can be captured in a minute and a half.  This, my friends, is called storytelling.  I hope you enjoy it as much as we do.  Well done, Puma. 

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Barcelona is branching out into Ghana, even if they don’t know it.

Yesterday we introduced Keta Sandlanders.  Today we bring you our exchange with the Sandlanders team, specifically Sandlanders Chairman and Founder Frank Cole and Vice-Chairman Paul Jones.  We covered everything from the club to Barcelona, development, a young Fabregas/Pienaar, and the upcoming World Cup.

Enjoy …

Several major international newspapers have reported on Keta Sandlanders’ unique model in the African game (The Guardian (UK) and Financial Times). What’s makes your approach in Ghanaian/African football unique?  What was the inspiration for the development of the Keta Sandlanders’ club model?

The model is unique in Ghanaian/African football as we will be giving everyone in the local community the opportunity to get involved in the running of the club and any profits made will be reinvested into the club and local community in line with our constitution. Too often in African football (as in other aspects of society) supporters feel detached from management/ownership and there is a lack of support for clubs because supporters don’t trust the owners. The co-operative structure is completely transparent and democratic and we hope to build a big fan base by allowing people to take a share in the club on a ‘one member one vote’ basis. We are promoting the club through our website to get international fans involved and in the long term we will encourage these fans to support development projects that go beyond football. The inspiration was Barcelona’s motto that it is ‘more than a club’ and the Sandlanders’ aim to become a vibrant social and economic community in Keta.

I like the spirit of the Barcelona ethos.  How has the community in Keta taken to the community-oriented approach to the club?

We are still in the early stages of raising community awareness of the co-operative. The last couple of years have been spent building a team and setting the co-operative up and the next few will be spent working to promote the co-op and engaging members. As the organization matures we will begin our own development projects in the area which will be decided upon and run by the local supporters.

How do the Sandlanders compare to other First and Second Division sides in Ghana?

There are many teams competing in Ghana’s lower divisions and in general terms the quality is good but the infrastructure of the clubs is poor.  Teams often run for one season investing everything they have before folding and sustainable structures are rare. We hope to boost our fundraising potential through website revenue and a mixture of public funding and commercial sponsorships to develop our infrastructure (training facilities, ground etc).

What has the response been in the rest of Ghana to the Sandlanders’ model?  To your knowledge, is this a model that other clubs are considering?

Everyone we have come across likes the idea but it will take a lot of hard work to make our model successful to encourage other clubs to run in a similar fashion. We aim to show that lots of people working together is more effective than working in isolation.

It’s surprising that we still have to prove that working together is more effective than working in isolation. What projects are underway at the club, and how has the local community responded to the club’s initiatives?  Going forward what projects are in the pipeline?

Our main efforts at the moment are on developing the co-operative. In the next year we will have an office for the co-operative where people can register with the club and we are also working on funding to develop a community pitch on the site of a former sports park in the town which is in a beautiful location on the coast but has fallen into disrepair since it was last used in the 1960s.

Why did you decide that a soccer club was in the right position to take on development projects in the community, rather than local or international NGOs?

Soccer clubs are very well placed to get the attention of the local community. They are a popular cause and people will often be more likely to join a football community than say an agricultural community. Once we have this attention, the club will be able to work with other NGOs in the local area who may have different areas of expertise. A profitable football club can invest in local businesses to make itself more sustainable and can work with other NGOs to start its own development projects. The most important thing is that the popular appeal is used responsibly.

Well said.  So let’s look back a little bit so that we can project forward.  The club was founded in 2002. Given the progress that has been made in the past eight years, where do you realistically see the club in five years?

The last 2 seasons have been spent stabilizing the club so that we can compete effectively in Ghana’s Division 2 and we have made a good start to this season.  In the next 5 years, our main aims centre around developing the co-operative, our infrastructure and our community links. We believe that a more successful team on the pitch will follow these off-field improvements. If we are playing in Ghana’s Premiership in 5 years with a community pitch of our own and a popular, active co-operative running the club that would be a real achievement!

Let’s turn to players.  Are most of the players local lads with ties to the community?

There is a good mix of local players and players from elsewhere in Ghana. In the past we have had players from as far away as Togo, Nigeria and Ivory Coast but the main focus will be on developing players from the Keta area.

Are there any young players at Keta Sandlanders who should be on our radar?  What are their attributes and what players would you compare them to?

The club’s stand-out young player is a midfielder called Charles Abotsi. He is 17 and has been played at Ghana’s regional trials (the pool of players from which Ghana’s U-17 team is drawn). He is a small player but has terrific control, passing and movement and is a little like a Fabregas or Everton’s Steven Pienaar.

Being a little like Fabregas or Pienaar isn’t a bad thing to be.  Raising these two names provides a nice segue into my final question.  Obviously all of Ghana is eagerly awaiting the first World Cup in Africa.  Give us a prediction.  How far will Ghana go in the tournament?

Ghana have a tough group but they have also developed a real winning mentality in the last year and had a good African Nations Cup powered by several youngsters who won the U-20 World Cup. With these young players and a fit Essien and Muntari, Ghana should make the last 16 at least.

And there you have it.  Click here to learn more information about Keta Sandlanders and join the movement.  For the price of a pint (at least in New York City or London), you can be an owner of one of the coolest clubs around and do some good.  It’s that simple!

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Division 2 Ghanaian club Keta Sandlanders, based on the coast of Ghana’s Volta Region, is one of the more interesting clubs around, not necessarily because it has trophies busting through the clasp of some varnished trophy cabinet, or because the Sandlanders have produced Ghanaian talents that are now household names, but because of the club’s vision of what the Sandlanders could be.

Over the years, countless academies and clubs have set up shop across the African continent with the express purpose of developing young players, or so they say.  Some have been successful, while others are purely parasitic.  But even in the midst of the successes, it’s hard to ignore the rampant shadiness that hovers like a dark cloud over parts of African football.

At times, it’s hard to turn your head away from the legacy of resource mining in Africa.  Taking a look back, there’s an eerie parallel between the mineral mining that took place in Africa during colonialism (and still continues), and mining the continent for young football talent.  Both practices exist, not necessarily because of some charitable desire, but rather because of a basic recognition that Africa is resource rich, and it’s resources are readily exploitable at low costs. Cynical, perhaps.  But there’s a track record to support some cynicism.  In 2008, the Guardian’s Dan McDougall reported the following:

There are an estimated 500 illegal football academies operating in Accra alone. Thousands more are spread across Ghana. Many are run by the roadside; most have no proper training facilities. With biblical names such as ‘Sons of Moses’ and ‘Lovers of Christ’, each will have its own tatty bibs or T-shirts to distinguish it from the others. At the children’s side, egging them on to run, pass, think quicker, will be a legion of unlicensed agents and coaches. Ninety per cent of the academies we visited in Accra and Abidjan – the principal city of Ivory Coast – were run by local men with limited experience of the game. Most described themselves as former footballers; but none was able to produce proof of his career. They are intent on finding one thing only: the next Essien or Didier Drogba. The next multi-million-pound golden ticket.

McDougall’s article highlights rampant abuse by a diverse cast of characters.  The culprits are foreign and African, rich and wannabe rich, individuals and corporations, but all are tied together by one common goal: to uncover diamonds for monetary gain under the guise of helping the youth.  But all mining isn’t bad per se.  It just comes with some responsibility, or at least it should.

Miners extract valuable resources from communities.  Therefore, there’s a responsibility to give back to the community from which resources are being extracted, especially when the extraction is really just for monetary gain. However, responsibility has been an afterthought.  So what remains is a mining culture cloaked by sophisticated PR campaigns, duping passers-by into believing that everyone has the heart of Mother Teresa.

African youth academies and clubs are easily manipulated for personal gain and image development.  Nothing creates a more compassionate public profile than helping out poor African kids, right?   Have you ever asked yourself why everyone wants to put their hand into soccer academies in Africa?  Why not science academies or other academic academies that are likely to have a greater impact than soccer?  I’m not questioning the value of soccer academies, but the prevalence of academies does raise questions about why they exist and what they are doing.  In many ways, the African youth academies have become the football equivalent to African babies for celebrities.  Be rich, help Africans, take resources, and send out a press release about how compassionate you are. It’s brilliant stuff, really.  But what is really being done?

It is in this rough and tumble world of academy and club football that Keta Sandlanders stands out as an example of what could be.  Exporting young talent and winning major trophies are not high on the Sandlanders’ immediate list of priorities given that the club has only been in action for a few years. Sure, like any club, the Sandlanders are fighting for promotion.  But the club’s greater focus is properly on creating a responsible, sustainable model based on a member-owned structure, community-oriented growth, technology, and a strategy to lead community development projects in Keta.

The Sandlanders have built community and development into their model.  The club will increasingly use its website to promote local industries in Keta and to give visitors a taste of daily life.  The area has a beautiful coast line and strong tourist potential. Keta occupies a sand spit between a lagoon and the sea (hence the Sandlanders name) and has suffered greatly through the impact of erosion, but a coastal defense scheme completed a few years ago has made the area viable for development once again.  The club has long term plans to develop these types of community projects.  In fact, one-fifth of the money raised is contributed to sustainable community development programs in Keta.  These aren’t side projects, but integral components of the club’s DNA.  That’s not just admirable; it’s also responsible.

It is helpful to juxtapose Sandlanders with the Red Bull Soccer Academy as a comparison point.  No, not the one in New York, but the Red Bull Academy in Ghana’s Volta Region.  The mission of the Red Bull Academy, according to Hermann Kern, the Academy’s General Manager, is to provide “its products with all the academic requirements, so that they can express and make intelligent decisions as they strive to reach the top in both their soccer and academic pursuits.”  Members of the community around the Academy are allowed to use the Academy’s IT facilities, and Red Bull has provided a decent drinking water facility, which probably makes more sense than providing a Red Bull energy drink facility.

As wonderful as Red Bull’s initiative is, it simply serves to highlight why the Sandlanders approach is so admirable.  Although providing a service for the community is all well and good, we shouldn’t conflate a development academy’s side projects with the desire to really invest in community transformation. Being a neighbor is a nice gesture, but it isn’t always enough.

But is it a club’s responsibility, especially one headed by major foreign investors, to develop communities?  In my opinion, yes.  Over the past few decades, I’ve seen too many examples of wealthy investors moving into neighborhoods thinking that their presence is good enough.  But every new footprint in these communities comes at a cost.  If clubs think responsibly and truly want to make a long-term difference, clubs can be uniquely placed to lead development projects.

Even though the Sandlanders are not yet on the level of major African clubs such as Ghana’s Hearts of Oak and Egypt’s Al Ahly, clubs around the world could learn a thing or two from the Sandlanders.  In an era marred by financial mismanagement and quick-fixes, the Sandlanders approach can go a long way to proving that success doesn’t necessarily have to come from corporate greed or resource manipulation.  There are other models to explore how success and responsibility can co-exist.

We caught up with the Sandlanders team, specifically Sandlanders Chairman and Founder Frank Cole and Vice-Chairman Paul Jones, to talk, well, Sandlanders of course.  Tomorrow, we’ll share a few highlights from our exchange.

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So we’re still waiting on the announcement of the Ivory Coast job.  Sven Goran Eriksson and Bernd Schuster are known to be on the shortlist.  In the last couple of days, former Manchester City boss Mark Hughes has sadly surfaced as an option, probably because of his wildly successful stints at Blackburn Rovers and Manchester City.  You already know how I feel about the African coaching selection process.  But after this recent news of Mark Hughes’ inclusion on the shortlist for the Ivory Coast job, it is clear that someone is playing a practical joke.

The Ivorian Football Federation’s shortlist is shocking considering none of these candidates have any experience coaching in Africa.  Well, maybe it really should not be that shocking considering the same process just took place in Nigeria with a familiar cast of characters.  However, it is difficult to believe that Eriksson, Schuster, and Hughes, three men lacking any discernible experience in Africa, are the most qualified candidates willing to accept the Ivory Coast job.

I haven’t changed my mind since my last article on African coaching. There seems to be no long term development plan in place in most of the major African footballing nations.  You have teams loaded with some of the biggest stars in the world, managerial turnover reminiscent of Roman Abramovich’s Chelsea, and wildly inconsistent results. African football needs managers willing to commit to a long-term development plan, and that comes down to both the managers and the federations.

Consistency in Ivorian football probably won’t come from hiring any of these three men simply because they’ll be gone as quickly as they arrived.  Anyone who thinks Sven won’t be ready to jump ship as soon as the next Notts County shows up with a consistent paycheck is delusional.  In the past year, Sven was willing to coach Second Division English club Notts County, Nigeria, and Ivory Coast. If that doesn’t smell of desperation, I don’t know what does.  And desperation should not be on the list of attributes for your next national team coach.

Similarly, I’ll go as far as to say that Mark Hughes is not planning on a permanent or even semi-permanent move to Côte d’Ivoire.  He will be heading back to anywhere as soon as an option is available. So really Ivory Coast, stop making me plead.  You are just feeding the dependence problem again.  Stop setting up the Ivorian people for the departure of yet another parent-like figure.  You might think it’s a great short-term move, but a quick look at history suggests otherwise.  It’s time to invest in your people because it’s looking more and more like no one else will.

Don’t worry about Sven.  He will have other options.  Maybe North Korea will have an opening soon and the Great Leader will give him a call.  I’m sure he would show up for the interview.

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