Giving the old Evo: The beautiful game

I've always had a soft spot for Evo Morales, President of Bolivia. He's not perfect, but who is? Few can say they've done the same amount to tackle corruption, bring multi-nationals to heel or develop real poverty alleviation in one of the poorest countries on Earth.

This, of course, does not excuse thuggery on the football field.



Here we see Evo, first man of Bolivia, giving what can only be described as a quick knee to the balls of an opponent on the football field - apparently in retaliation for an earlier foul.

Press reports suggest that the man Morales left rolling about on the floor in pain was sent off! I suppose there's no point in being President if you can't do this sort of thing, sigh. To add insult to injury Evo's security team then wanted to arrest the man, but were restrained.

I do like the idea of a football playing President - but I'd rather a clean player with good team building skills than a dirty bugger, quick to apply his studs to an opponent's particulars.

The problem with the games

It seems that every major international sporting event has to have an accompanying hoo ha about chalets without toilets, stadiums without tracks or sites that are essentially just a pile of sand. Of course the London Olympic Games will be different, but all the other events - they're always beset by problems.

However, the real tragedies of these events aren't the escalating costs but the trampling of rights and social justice that takes place. While much has been made of India's inability to put together a decent athlete's village for the Common Wealth Games, much less has been made of the social cost to the surrounding population.

Whether it is the extreme security measures or the fact that all local businesses have been instructed to shut down for the opening and closing of the games. It's not as if they could sell anything to the athlete's or attendees anyway, but to forbid them to ply their normal trade to local residents is a real problem.

There's more though. The consistent use of child labour for example. The safety standards that mean more than a hundred workers have been killed during the construction of the sites. Or students evicted to make way for the games. Time and again it is the power of the state against its people, not on behalf of them.

The cost of the games was over a hundred times the original estimate coming in at over ten billion quid of the Indian government's money when it has so many living in terrible conditions of poverty. Has this money gone to alleviate that poverty perhaps? Well no - it's gone into the pockets of the rich. Less lofty folk have simply found their businesses shut, their homes evicted or worst of all their lives lost.

I know the British Press have only been concerned about how luxurious their own accommodation will be but frankly, there are wider issues. Time and again these vanity events are used to build the prestige of the host government at the expense of their people. It's only two years to go before we get our turn, it may well not be as extreme as in India, but all the same problems will be there.

Sport: tearing up the rule books

I had a very enjoyable day today half-watching the Hopi fund raising cricket match in which a team including the very cream of the Green Party's sporting elite thrashed the Labour Representation Committee in a game so friendly that rules were taken as mere guidance and the huge bribes paid to produce no balls were returned to their benefactors.

A good amount of money was raised for Workers Fund for Iran, and factory workers in Tabriz who are threatened with job losses had already passed on their thanks for our efforts - although their views on the dodgy LBW decision that saw Hopi's Ben Lewis knocked out undeservedly early are as yet unknown.

The day saw some particularly interesting bowling which seemed more inspired by modern jazz dance than Shane Warne, which got me to thinking about modern sport.

The other day I was eating my lunch next to a tennis court where two pairs were playing. The first couple were taking it all very seriously, keeping score and no doubt alert for chalk dust. The second pair didn't serve once, concentrated on knocking it back and forth and seemed to be having a much better time. Not only weren't they keeping score but they didn't seem too bothered about chatting during the game, how many times the ball bounced, where the lines were or anything else.

Now, unless the first pair were in training for a professional match (in which case I hope they have a good deal more time to practice) ruleless tennis certainly seemed to be the way to go if the objective is to run about and enjoy yourself with a friend.

The process of strictly codified rules for sport began to come into its own in the 19th century. This is the same time that prisons, work houses, schools with rows of desks and insane asylums became de rigeur. It was also the time when we became obsessed with synchronising our clocks... mind you its also when we started taking sewage systems seriously as well so let's not stretch the analogy too far.

My point being that as the industrial revolution matured all kinds of aspects of our lives became mechanised and regulated in a way they never had been before. There were often practical reasons for this. If you were going to bet on a match you don't want your pony resting on whether the players spontaneously decide to make it a best of three just as you're about to collect your winnings.

These sometimes arbitrary rules create a discipline that might not otherwise be there, which can be good, but they also transform a social activity into a regulated and reified (sorry) thing in itself, independent of the players. By reified (sorry) I mean we turn something fluid (social interaction, running about, laughing) into something solid (set time periods, scores, set numbers of players, etc.). I mean we turn the moments of our life into social objects.

It's not that modern capitalism defines us so tightly that we can't see any other way of doing things, but we do allow it to shape the way we see things. Of the tennis players I mentioned earlier we see one set as playing 'properly' and the others as being less serious.

Some people might even go so far as to say the ruleless players should have got off the court and made room for a pair who wanted to play 'real' tennis. I don't agree. People made those rules up in the first place, we're people, so maybe we can make up rules of our own - and then break those as well if we want to.

Spain wins: Octupi all over the word cheer!

As the Octopus predicted Spain won 1 - 0 over the Netherlands in an, at times, uninspiring final of the World Cup having scored eight goals in seven matches. At other times we saw the kind of fighting display that only the likes of Cantona and Zidane would normally treat us to.

We had the fan, obviously having overdosed on vuvuzela juice attempting to rush the "cup" itself.

Then we had the play itself which was, at times, hair raising. The British ref had his yellow card out so often he was considering not putting it away again. I counted 13 yellow cards and one red, although I might be off there. I wonder if this is a record for Cup final?

But though they marched into the valley of death the Spanish team triumphed, bruised and unbeaten, to much cheering from some and horror from others. Certainly my part of London was roaring when the final whistle blew.


It was good to see Mandela there to see the final, after much hoo and ha, and I hope he enjoyed the culmination of what has been seen as a successful hosting of the World Cup, although we've seen it has not been without it's problems.

Andrés Iniesta celebrated his 116th minute winning goal by tearing off his top revealing a T-shirt with the words "Dani Jarque siempre con nosotros", which apparently translates as "Dani Jarque is always with us" referring to the 26 year old team captain of RCD Espanyol who died of a heart attack while on the phone to his girlfriend.

Congratulations to Spain even if my prediction of an all Latin American final turned out to be monumentally wrong. Ha!

Guest Post: football, freedom and South Africa

Today's guest post is from one of Hackney's finest, Pippa Lane. Here she discusses the fascinating history of the Makana Football Association, and wonders whether everything was quite as splendid as the official history seems to be saying.

The eyes of the world have been focussed on football in South Africa in recent weeks and South Africa’s former political prisoners have shared some of the limelight. A couple of weeks ago the BBC ran a short feature on the Makana Football Association - the body created and run by political prisoners that organised football on Robben Island (some of whom are pictured right with Fifa President Sepp Blatter). This coverage typifies how former political prisoners, and Nelson Mandela in particular, have been almost deified in the last two decades.

Nonetheless, the Makana Football Association was incredible. It was modelled on international rules and within months of its establishment contained twenty-six sides organised into three divisions. The Association was named after Makana, a Xhosa leader banished to Robben Island in 1819. He drowned trying to swim back to the mainland.

The prisoners kept detailed records from the various sport and recreation committees on Robben Island and these are kept in the archive of the Robben Island Museum. These records reveal a level of tension rarely reported by former Islanders in the years after their release. There were frequent allegations of biased or incompetent refereeing and resignations by referees and prisoners often referred to a past golden age of sport on the Island. A letter written by a prisoner in 1983 said:

Sir,

Sport has for the duration of our stay here been the cementing force which has effectively obliterated our natural identities. I have all these years given my services unreservedly to the promotion of sport in the general sense. It has in recent years been quite clear that we have lost the recipe, sport has suddly [sic] become the source of conflict.

I choose this moment to announce my resignation as one of your rugby referees, and consequently shall not consider myself obliged to carry out any duties assigned by you in future for the rest of my stay here.

I regret the inconvenience which might be caused by my decision, but I prefer to retire with my dignity.

Thanking you

Yours in sport

However, the archives of the various clubs do not disclose such a time of calm and cooperation. A letter to the Robben Island Sports Association in 1981 contained an excerpt from a document 10 years previously:

we are where we are, and being where we are we find ourselves exposed to psychological and physical pressures which have a telling effect on our material and spiritual well-being. ... The purpose of sport is, therefore, to kill boredom, to reduce tension, to chase away anxiety. But once this purpose is overlooked, once points … or victory become the be all and end all of things, then our inter-personal dealings will become corroded by boredom, wrecked by tension and shattered by anxieties and the playing of sport will be the cause of those very maladies which sport was supposed to cure.

The letter went on to reflect that “The above excerpt was written more than ten years ago but its message is still as fresh, as valid and as relevant today as it was then.”

The creation of a football league on Robben Island was no doubt an incredible achievement in hostile circumstances. However, South Africa’s political prisoners were not super-human and the political prison was destructive, not a seedbed of democracy. The political prisoners were often frail, petty, bored and argumentative. Ordinary people like you and me, then. I think that makes their actions and commitment to overthrowing a terrible regime all the more heroic.

Give Uruguay a hand

Some people think that Uruguay only beat Ghana last night because of this handball...


But if you look at it from a different angle...


Oh, I see.

If they run up against Argentina I wonder which side the hand of God will support?

Football pieces - accumulation overload

Having been struggling for days with a very poor internet connection I've not been keeping up with my World Cup links. This is a shame because I keep finding more and more, so this is an over edited edition.

I was disappointed by the way that not a single paper ran with the headline "For you England the Cup is over" but I was cheered up by the fact that David Blaine is apparently quite annoyed because his record of doing nothing in a box for 42 days has been broken by Wayne Rooney.

Anyway, enough of this and on to the last Englishman to keep the World Cup flame alive, Howard Webb, international standard ref.


Not only is he still in the Cup his experience goes all the way back to the Battle of Orgreave. He recalls his experience in Euro 2008 "I had a game in Salzburg and was met by the head of police off the plane. He said: 'Mr Vebb, you will not be killed in Salzburg.'" Reassuring.

• It's not just France that decided to blame black people for their poor performance. We have these guys in the UK too. Liberal Conspiracy.
  
  
• Speaking of which, Back of the net says that France is satisfied now it has beaten France.
  
  
• Everyone was so sure that Fabio Capello was going to be for the high jump, but apparently he's staying with football.
  
  
• Paul Stott reflects on whether Marxists get on with sport. Will they be watching the coverage?
  
  
• Patrick Bond looks at how the Cup has played into xenophobia in South Africa.
  
  
• Corruption in football? Surely not.
  
  
• John Barnes tells us that socialism is the cure for our football woes. Yes he does.
  
  
• Jane Watkinson looks at the fortunes of the US and Latin Americans.
  
  
• Septicisle tells us why England continue to lose.
  
  
• Chris Dillow looks at football and class, and then comes out with the classic line "there’s a difference between IQ intelligence and footballing intelligence; Glenn Hoddle has devoted his life to demonstrating this."
  
  
• Fed up with "soccer" then why not try Quiddich? Adrian.
  
  
• Paul Watson thinks Erikson had a good World Cup.
  
  
• Kate Blagojevic compares Holland and Brazil.
  

Finally just thought I'd flag up how vuvuzelas have entered the protest community in the US as a guy called Adam Quirk is organising a vuvuzela attack on BP's US headquarters and raising money for the oil spill clean up at the same time. Nice.

Wolrd Cup history repeats itself

A potentially equalising goal is disallowed due to the lack of goal-line technology and then Germany go on to beat England by a convincing margin. The first time as tragedy the second time as farce.

Let us remind ourselves of what the Sun was saying before the games began.



It's about up to the standard of that august publication then. Perhaps a member of the German team could be enlisted to explain the term schadenfreude.

So the British public have been let out early from their prison of national soul searching and the Germans, who suffer no such angst, are free to romp forwards to a defeat at the hands of the Argentinians.

Meanwhile there are others in a more celebratory mood.

Thuresday's football pieces - happy now?

Well, England beat the Slitheen team and most commentators agreed that England's performance was a little bit less mediocre than on previous occasions, as this typical piece of defending pictured no doubt demonstrates.

• Political prisoner Mumia Abu Jamal writes on vuvuzelas.
  
  
• Martin's blog takes issue with some scientific explanations of the difference between fans.
  
  
• Paul Watson meanwhile finds one Nigerian miss to be baffling to science.
  
  
• The question for England fans now is who do you want to be beaten by? Germany in the next game or Argentina in the round after that. Exciting.
  
  
• Oh, and do check out Radio Four's Look Away Now, which is pretty good for a topical sporting comedy.
  

Wednesday's football pieces

Today's the day that sorts the wheat from the chaff, and we've certainly seen a lot of chaffing recently. If England are able to start scoring some goals they might be able to get into the next stage, but that looks like a big if at the moment as the players seem to be wearing the weight of several worlds upon their shoulders.

• Spotted this on Indymedia. Bend it like Imperialism.
  
  
• Lewisham's News Shopper declares Anyone but England.
  
  
• They wont like the BBC's "rousing" spur to the England team, featuring Brian Blessed.
  
  
• WDM weigh up the ethical differences between England and Slovenia.
  
  
• Reading the Maps gives us reasons to support Argentina.
  
  
• Stuart Jeffries looks at the trouble with the French. The rows continue and are becoming more racist by the hour, as major sponsors withdrew support for the team, the BBC reports soul searching, which is a new euphemism on me.
  
  I guess this is to be expected as the French interior minister (Home Secretary) has been convicted of racism and they are debating a veil ban in Parliament soon. The deep vein of racism in French society is playing itself out on and off the pitch.
  
  
• CNN see the competition as a clash of logos and the NY Times looks at the financial goals some have of the Cup.
  

Tuesday's football pieces

The English press has been in hog heaven with a hapless England team to eviscerate, a gormless John Terry standing up for honest speaking (honesty being his most famous trait) and Wayne Rooney having the gall to complain about the fans when he should have been lashing himself with sharpened twigs.

They also get to repeat, ad nauseum, "at least we're not France". You see whatever ructions there have been in the England camp we haven't had people sent home and a player revolt that left leading players on the benches - a hoo ha that is widely seen as leading to their dismal performance that, as of today, ensures they couldn't clear the group stage.

However, it's the racism of the thing that should interest us. The complaints have mounted that the French squad, and in particular the black players, are not patriotic enough and do not represent France. They don't even sing the national anthem at the start of the game. This led to one poll yesterday saying that 75% of French people hoped that the squad did *not* win today's crucial game.

Well, I guess there'll be dancing in the streets of Paris tonight then. Now for the round-up;

• The Mail has an odd story implicating Rooney and Terry in the killing of kangaroo babies.
  
  
• I'm a great fan of David Zirin, the American sports journalist, who has responded to Terry Eagleton's remarks that if we are to gain any social progress we'll have to abolish football.
  
  
• Sunder Katwala claims the left is winning the cup.
  
  
• Kasama says that the World Cup draws out the difference between the South Africa that could have been and the South Africa that is.
  
  
• John Foster says that the USA has finally learned to embrace and despise football.
  
  
• Charlotte Gore looks at the players' pay and motivations.
  
  
• Derek Wall says that the media have censored the protest of Argentinian players.
  

Saturday's Football pieces - oh dear edition

The England team's pitiful performance last night leaves it in need of a decisive win on Wednesday, against the only team in the group that has so far won a game. If that wasn't pressure enough the weight of the press (tabloid and respectable) must be suffocating as not a kind word can be found about the team they are supposed to be supporting.

One fan took it on himself last night to burst into the team's dressing room to give them a piece of his mind, which is generous as he didn't have much to spare for himself. Good hearted I call it. He was most likely only able to get through security because it's on strike.

Meanwhile Wayne Rooney is taking up much of the column inches as he decided to publicly rebuke fans for being less than supportive of the national team. Fans responded with drivel like "He's paid millions to be a role model and I've come a long way for this so I expect him to win all the games he plays in and behave himself while thousands of people heap scorn upon him as he sees his World Cup dreams dashed."

Basically I'm with Wayne on this one. England fans and the press do everything they can to demoralise their team. If you want working class footballers to reply to the boos and hisses with a smile and a bland salute then you'll be waiting a long time for that. Good on him. You can't win games with all stick and no carrot.

• Disgracefully the Vuvuzela has been banned from Cardiff. That's Welsh culture you're messing with!


• Those who risk their lives to watch the Cup in Somalia.


• The strikes have spread to half the venues where cops have replaced stewards.


• The Guardian argues that football banning orders are out of control.
  
  
• The Algerian team psyched themselves up for the game by watching Battle of Algiers.
  

Friday's football pieces - bumper edition

• Caron is jolly excited by the way we all got to pay for Boris to go to the World Cup. Super!
  
  
• Andy has spotted a useful round-up of the African blogosphere's reaction to the Cup.
  
  
• Paul Sagar asks whether the England squad need better incentives.
  
  
• Fatima Asmal wonders whether all of South Africa is feeling the fever.
  
  
• David Bond declares that this is the most boring World Cup in history, and we haven't even finished the group stage yet!
  
  
• Paul Mason explains what bank regulators could learn from football referees.
  
  
• The ongoing coverage of from the Watson brothers at back of the net is most enjoyable.
  
  
• The London Progressive Journal has two Cup related stories. One moaning about the way advertisers have treated it like one long sales pitch ("pitch" - get it!) and the other discussing nationalism and hype.
  
  
• Sunder Katwala explores whether we should consolidate our patchwork of useless 'national' teams into one, easily managed useless British team.
  
  
• The Church Times notes that the Vuvuzela is Africa's "revenge on the West". (h/t Splintered Sunrise)

Thursday's football pieces

• Claude ponts out that England's goalie has done immigrants a favour.
  
  
• Mark Steel is thinking of turning Japanese.
  
  
• Sunder Katwala thinks that the left is falling behind n the World Cup.
  
  
• Little Richardjohn wants the sounds of the crowd not the bleating of the commentators.
  
  
• Red Pepper looks at the stadiums and their value.
  
  
• Terry Eagleton says that football is the dear friend to capitalism.
  

Wednesday's football pieces

• The New Statesman takes a look at the lilting nuance of the vuvuzela.
  
  
• They must have been watching the way the professionals play them.
  
  
• BBC website about why have the Cup in Africa and then insist it's too African.
  
  
• The Guardian tells us that goalies are basically misfits
  
  
• Disgraceful detention of Dutch fans for wearing cloths with logos from non-sponsors.
  
  
• After the ITV cock-up the Independent reminds us the ads have spoiled the fun before.
  
  
• Mark Steel has a great time denouncing the not so free market of the World Cup.
  
  
• Lastly, I enjoyed this letter from Eddie Dougall, "The incessant noise of the South African vuvuzelas is a disappointment: it is still possible to hear the non-stop comments from the pundits and commentators above it."

Tuesday's football pieces

More bits and pieces from the World Cup I thought people might be interested in. I should point out I'm not necessarily endorsing any of the opinions in these links, but I do think they are worth a look - otherwise I wouldn't link to 'em.

• There's an interesting Mum's Net discussion on the relationship between football and domestic violence.
  
  
• Olly Zanetti asks whether those who shun flags are just snobs.
  
  
• Talking of snobs the BBC (also) may be looking to purge them from our screens.
  
  
• The Guardian is having fun at the moment. Check out their lego re-enactment of Saturday's game.
  
  
• The Sauce looks at slum dwellers who are facing eviction during the Cup.
  
  
• Peter Guest tells us not to patronise Africa. It was great even before the World Cup.
  

Monday's football pieces

• The riot police break up Durban wages demonstration. AP.
  
  
• In defense of the vuvuzela. Hooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooonk. Anton Vowl.
  
  
• But Fifa is considering banning the vuvuzela. Guardian.
  
  
• The world cup is not xenophobic. Robert Sharp.
  
  
• Why I love the world cup. Random Blowe.
  
  
• World cup good, athletics rubbish. Reuben.
  
  
• I was surprised to read this World Cup analysis from all round good guy Paul Mason.

Football pieces, Sunday

• Madam Miaow speculates "the only thing worse than watching a team sport is playing one".
  
  
• The New York Post has a sober account of yesterday's match.
  
  
• Beansprouts has more personal, touching, reflections on the Cup.
  
  
• Links magazine looks at the economic price to South Africa's workers.
  
  
• ITV has apologised to viewers after they cut away from England's first goal of the cup in order to sell us shit. One viewer imagines what 1966 would have looked like in their hands.
  
  
• Talking of naked capitalism... it's outrageous that free condoms are forbidden from stadiums because Durex is a sponsor. In fact the sponsors have completely crowded out local vendors who are entirely excluded from the games. This is particularly off because of the pre-World Cup fuss made about prostitution, a discussion which has almost completely disappeared.
  
  
• This is a really fun little gadget from the Guardian. It's the twitter action replay, with time line, from all the various games. I've checked out a couple of examples and it works brilliantly as well as being slightly mesmeric. Do check it out.
  

Football pieces

• Mike Maqusee in the Guardian explains how to enjoy football more by being unaffiliated.
  
  
• Reading the Maps discusses why we should support the New Zealand team.
  
  
• Liam is only interested in the singing.
  
  
• Charlie Brooker vents against patriotism.
  
  
• The Morning Star has a piece on how football helped to bring down apartheid.
  
  
• Richard Osley stares in horror at John Barnes.
  

ANC invokes Apartheid era legislation

The South African government has invoked Apartheid era legislation to force journalists to reveal confidential sources or face jail.

The government wants to force a TV station to reveal the identities of two self-confessed criminals it interviewed anonymously who spoke about how criminal gangs are preparing for the World Cup.

ETV issued a statement saying that;

Two eNews journalists have been served with subpoenas in terms of Section 205 of the Criminal Procedure Act.

This follows an eNews story by Mpho Lakaje – aired on Friday January 15th – which featured interviews with two self-confessed criminals. One of the criminals stated that he would rob tourists during World Cup 2010. Another said that he would be prepared to shoot his way out of a standoff with police if he felt his life was in danger. This was in response to a question as to what he thought of the police’s new tougher approach to fighting crime.

State prosecutors require Ben Said, eNews Group News Editor and Reporter, Mpho Lakaje to appear in court on 25th January unless they provide the following:

· the identity (names and surnames), addresses and contact details of the persons interviewed.

· full particulars of who brought the firearms visible during the program to the interview, who possessed the firearms during the interview and what happened to the firearms after the interview was completed

· the original and unedited footage of the interview.

The matter is currently with eNews’ attorneys.

On the same day it was reported that a man that had acted as a 'facilitator' between the TV station and the criminals killed himself, although the circumstances around his death do not appear to be public knowledge.

It may appear to be worthwhile to infringe a few journalists rights in order to arrest two dangerous criminals (or try to) but the short term benefits would have long term negative consequences, not least that it would prevent journalists being able to guarantee their sources anonymity - massively hampering the ability of the press to do its job, that's a high price to pay which could lead to far more deaths than could be prevented through invoking this law.