Violence, suicide and theft all part of `funny' old game

A state president forced to flee the VIP stand, a fan who commits suicide after his country could manage only a draw and a sports minister forced to resign after he "lost" £31,000 set aside for team expenses were just some of the more "colourful" news items to emerge from African soccer last week.

In a normal week, such items might attract only minimal attention. Yet last week, FIFA's executive committee, meeting in Zurich, reiterated its view that football's most prestigious tournament, the World Cup, should be rotated among the six continental confederations.

Furthermore, the executive committee agreed that the rotation "should start in Africa," adding however that more details about the concept will be presented to the executive committee at its next meeting in Buenos Aires in July.

In simple terms, this means that Africa will sooner or later - most probably in 2010 - get to stage the World Cup finals. Such an announcement comes as no surprise. In the wake of the row that broke out last July following FIFA's allocation of the 2006 World Cup to Germany rather than to South Africa, FIFA had already given its approval "in principle" to the rotation concept.

If and when Africa gets to stage the finals, they are unlikely to prove dull, at least if reports of last week's African qualifiers for the 2002 finals in South Korea and Japan are any indicator. Take little Sierra Leone, for example - they have had the misfortune to find themselves in a tough qualifying Group B which also features Nigeria, Ghana, Liberia and Sudan.

Ten days ago, Sierra Leone lost their fourth consecutive qualifier, beaten 2-0 at home to Sudan. Enraged by the team's poor performance, the fans turned their ire on the VIP stand, throwing bottles and other missiles at the gathered dignitaries. Among those forced to make a hasty exit was Sierra Leone President, Ahmed Tejjan Kabbah. Not surprisingly, team coach Christian Cole subsequently opted to resign.

Whatever the disappointment felt by the Sierra Leone fans, it was nothing in comparison with one Nigerian fan who actually killed himself after Nigeria had been held to a 0-0 away draw to an understrength Ghana.

The distraught supporter had told friends he would commit suicide if his country didn't win the match. Sadly, he kept his promise by drinking poison from a bottle and died moments later, to his friends' horror.

As one of the outstanding sides at France '98, Nigeria was expected to romp through Group B but currently lie third, having lost 2-1 to Liberia as well as being held by Ghana.

Nor are Ghana, currently fourth on four points, doing any better following defeats by both Liberia and Sudan.

Ghana had problems off the field, too, when sports minister Mallam Issah opted to resign last week "to save himself and the government further embarrassment from the events surrounding the loss of his suitcase with £31,000 during the recent trip to Sudan."

Another resignation last week was that of Algerian coach Abdelghani Jeddaoui, shortly after Algeria were routed 5-2 by Egypt in Group C. This is one group that remains wide open with Senegal and Morocco as well as Egypt and Algeria all in contention for one place.

In Group D, Tunisia and Ivory Coast are topping the table but here again the difficulties of African soccer manifest themselves since the group's fixture list was turned upside down when the Democratic Republic of Congo first opted to drop out of the tournament and then decided to re-enter.

Elsewhere, two "giants" of African soccer appear headed for qualification with Cameroon having won four out of four in Group A (Angola, Zambia, Togo, Lybia are the other teams) and with South Africa three out of three in Group E (also including Guinea, Zimbabwe, Malawi and Burkina Faso).

However, things are also a little confused in Group E since Guinea are currently under suspension by FIFA. As we said, World Cup finals in Africa are unlikely to prove dull.