World Cup already overflowing with
entertainment, endeavour and emotion, the game between Ghana and Germany
on Saturday was a particular joy.
A vibrant, pulsating 90 minutes of
fluctuating fortunes, every attack seemed to promise goals, every player
was striving his utmost, every moment was utterly compelling.
Around the stadium, the thousands of
Brazilians in attendance were, to a man, woman and child, backing Ghana.
This wasn’t simply out of a natural inclination to support the
underdog. It was as much driven by the possibility that this Ghanaian
side might deliver the shock of the tournament. Until a last minute
equaliser, they really did look as if they were going to beat the mighty
Germans.
What a game this was. Played in great spirit,
without play-acting or subterfuge; despite the relentless pressure only
one participant was shown the yellow card. To look away for a second
was to risk missing a vital plot development: never mind England’s
pitiful showing, this was football as it should be played. This was the
World Cup at its best, the perfect advertisement for the sport’s
virtues.
After the game, Akwasi Appiah, the quietly
spoken Ghanaian coach, seemed the calmest man in a stadium still
vibrating with excitement.
“Ghanaians have a strong mentality in
football,” he said. “We always believe we have to fight to the end never
mind what happens initially.”
A few hours after Appiah and his players had
left the stadium, glowing in satisfaction at having so demonstratively
fought to the end, the story broke in the Daily Telegraph that the
chairman of the Ghana Football Association had been filmed by undercover
reporters negotiating with match fixers. As his players were giving
their all in the attempt to progress in the competition, their boss
Kwesi Nyantake appeared happy to let his team play in games that others
were prepared to rig.
How depressing was that news. There, on the
pitch in Brazil, was a group of Ghanaians giving their all for their
national pride, while in a hotel suite in Miami the man at the head of
their game was happy to compromise all their excellence for a few quid.
What’s worse, he seemed utterly relaxed about the process, as if it were
merely part of his brief.
As an example of the apparent corruption
gnawing away at the soul of the game, it could not have been more
ill-timed. Ghana’s footballers had just provided a breathless spectacle
of group hunger, determination and pride. Their nation’s FA president
had countered that with what appeared to be a breath-taking display of
individual greed.
There is no suggestion that any of Ghana’s
games in this World Cup have been so tainted. Indeed, it would be
impossible to imagination a game less contrived than Saturday’s
wonderful display. That is the joy of football: as many a movie director
has found out, the naturally achieved contours of its drama simply
cannot be scripted.
Yet, alarmingly, the Ghanaian FA president
seemed happy to make the attempt. He was utterly shameless in the
compromise of his players’ integrity as he appeared willing to arrange
friendlies through an agency that would employ corrupt match officials
in order to nobble the result.
For the fans and reporters packing
Fortaleza’s newly constructed stadium, this was the most disheartening
coda to the match. The build-up to the World Cup had been pockmarked by
the whiff of corruption. For much of the past year, the streets of
Brazil have thrummed with protest that the competition was not to be the
engine of economic development promised, but was instead a hugely
expensive circus, played out in over-priced white elephant stadia. Its
beneficiaries were not the poor or down-trodden, but the blazer-clad
bureaucrats of Fifa.
In its demonstration of human endeavour,
spirit and sportsmanship, the Ghanaians and Germans on Saturday gave
vivid challenge Saturday to that assumption. Here was something pure,
decent, good, something worth striving for. And all the time, the man
supposed to be one of the game’s custodians appeared willing to
compromise its integrity. Rarely has there been a more pertinent example
of lions led by a donkey than in the Ghanaian FA.
Source: Daily Telegraph
