African Cup of Nations and going to South Africa

Well I haven't used my blog for a while because with my new job I wanted to wait and see how far I could go with this. However football is not an issue they will be concerned with so I can talk about my month of watching the African Nations Cup and the build up to South Africa.

Firstly CAF, the most backward inconsiderate federation that ever existed in the world of football. My main gripe this time is the banning of Togo for the next 2 cups in Gabon/Equitoral Guinea and Libya. This is the perhaps the most ludicrous decision I've ever seen. I'm no fan of Togo but to ban them for getting shot at and fearing for their lives and wanting to bury their dead is astounding. I really can't put into words how awful this is. Does CAF have no relation to the real world? I can assure you if it was an England team then we would not only have left the tournament but banning all our sports men from going there and persuading UEFA to do the same. The Copa America usually invites a couple of countries and I hope they do invite Togo to stick two fingers at CAF.
This leads me on to people saying this will affect South Africa. Nonsense. South Africa and Angola are two very different places and I didn't thing the Olympics in Athens should of been stopped because of violence in the middle east. This is just stereotyping and not appreciating the different struggles in different Southern African countries. I have and had family in Angola and Cabinda and this is a domestic issue not a regional one.

One last rant, Issa Hayatou is a tool. He's the president of CAF. Along with his atrocious handling of the Cabinda affair he also complained that we were not promoting African football enough. Now the entire African Nations cup was on terrestrial TV and Eurosport. I can't say the same about the Copa America (far superior) and the Asian Football Championship. If CAF spent more time getting people into stadiums and structuring African football properly perhaps there would of been a better spectacle to watch.

The first game Angola V Mali was entertaining but if you can't keep a 4-0 lead at home for the last 11 minutes then it's telling you something about the quality of the team. It wasn't a great tournament but there were a few good signs. Ghana's youngsters were very impressive and Kojo Asamoah looked the real deal. I can see how they won the U20 world cup and with Essien, Appiah and Muntari still to come back into the team they look the hottest prospect for the coming decade. Egypt though were the only class team in the tournament, now 3 times champions and deservedly so. How they didn't qualify for the world cup I have no idea. Their striker Gedo was super sub of the tournament and took his goal in the final well.

As for the world cup teams, Ghana as I said had a weakened team but still got to the final. Algeria lost all discipline and finished with 8 men and a thrashing at the hands to Egypt. England have nothing to fear from them (famous last words). Ivory Coast were disappointing losing to a poor Algeria in the quarter finals. They will struggle against Portugal and Brazil in the World Cup. Cameroon struggled to get out a simple group and Nigeria were lucky against Zambia and lacked real quality. As for South Africa, well they weren't even good enough to qualify for this tournament so enough said.

I fear for the African teams in this world cup and I don't think any of them will get out of their group with the possible exception of Ghana. They look like the only team capable of defending a lead. The other sides have specks of quality; Drogba, Kalou, Eto'o and Toure but once you scratch the surface there is very little underneath and are not teams. They look good going forward but are naive defensively.

OK one last rant this time to do with the world cup in South Africa. I really want to go but I'm appalled how little FIFA and South Africa are doing to stop this being a tournament about money. Emirates the official sponsor of the world cup is charging £1500 to fly to the world cup. British Airways are little better. The best deal I have found is from Air Mauritius for around £800. Add to this the price of group matches are £80 more than double than that in Germany in 2006. Hotels and internal flights are also seeing this as a money making scheme. England will have the second largest contingent of fans in South Africa after the USA but we will be sending tickets back even though the demand here is massive. A two week trip for the world cup will cost around £2500. This is ridiculous and South Africa is shooting itself in the foot by allowing it to happen. Rant over.

European Presidents

So Rompuy is the new president of the European Council, I'll be honest I don't really know anything about him apart from the fact he has a funny surname and was a prime minister. I'm sure I'll have to learn a lot about him but nobody really knows what he's going to do. It has brought up a lot of friction within the local populations about our lack of say in firstly having an EU president and who that should be. The undemocratic nature of it all does seem a little unnatural but when you think about it, it's probably for the best and his role is not really a new one. We had a rotating president before hand (each countries prime minister) so to have a neutral longer (but still short) term leader makes sense.

Winston Churchill summed up pretty much my views on democracy in November 1947 in a speech to the House of Commons. He said

'Many forms of Government have been tried and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time'

How can democracy be bad? Well defining democracy is difficult but I think it's pretty fair to say that it's being governed by the people. We the people choose somebody or some people to take charge and we decide (in theory) about what changes should be made in society. Now you can go down the path that democracy will lead to populism which is how many fascist regimes managed to take power in their countries. For me the problem is how society decides what is popular and what direction we should take. This is defined by our freedom, freedom of speech, freedom of political ideals and freedom of press. When these freedoms are manipulated that is when problems occur. I promise I won't start ranting about the press again but needless to say when major newspapers start declaring who they are supporting (The Sun) then freedom is being manipulated.

I've kind of lost track, so going back to the original topic. Should we have had a vote on the EU treaty? Forget everything about promises of votes on constitutions and referendums. If you believe everything a politician says when there are technicalities involved then you are more silly than you look. The problem with having a vote on the treaty is the simple fact that not many people know anything about the treaty, it is virtually impossible to have a neutral public consultation on anything without people dictating their opinions at us (yes i do see the irony of me saying that on my blog). I know plenty of twentysomethings that can't name any of the cabinet, let alone know the details of a treaty. One example of this was the potential Tony Blair nomination, reading the newspapers and talking to people he seems like the most hated candidate for this post. Now I don't think he would have been a good EU president but how has our opinion of him turned so dramatically bearing in mind he won 3 elections, one of them post-Iraq. I hazard a guess that our view of his popularity and downfall is the result not of our own opinion but what we are believed should be our opinion.

So when choosing an EU president it becomes just a populist race (much like how our national elections are becoming) and no longer a question of people choosing the best option. In likelihood a vote would lead to a high profile candidate rather than the best candidate. High profile candidates also have the problem that they leave half the people elated and half in despair, not ideal for someone trying to find consensus. Personally I feel the general concept of the treaty is good but it needs a low profile leader to gather consensus rather than strive for policy, even if I could vote I honestly couldn't say was the best candidate for the role.

We forget as well that there are far more influential people that can effect our day to day life's, the Chancellor, Some Secretary, Justice Minister, Foreign Secretary, Head of the Civil Service, Leader of the UN, World Bank, IMF would are all unelected by the populations they effect. There is a good reason for this.

As for elections in general, the last European election in the UK got a 34% turnout (Less than X Factor) compared to 61% in the general elections, I think this shows that European policy is not of great importance to the general public. As for the debate on Catherine Ashton being an unknown on the top of your head name me another G20 foreign minister other than our own, David Milliband and the former US presidents wife Hillary Clinton. The person should not be bigger than the institution they represent.

So I guess when it comes down to whether I want Joe Bloggs from the pub choosing our leader or the Swedish PM then I would probably go for the latter.

From 204 to 32; South Africa here we come

The qualification for the 2010 World Cup is over, 32 teams will now fight it out in June and July to become the World Champions. There are a few surprises but most the big teams made it through, just. In July, I made my predictions for who would qualify (Here) and I was pretty accurate getting 28 of the 32 (Costa Rica, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Croatia were my guesses that missed out)

For me, Russia going out to Slovenia was the biggest upset of the whole qualification period followed closely by the African Champions Egypt going out to Algeria. Obviously most of the talk will be about France and Ireland. It was a hand ball, nobody doubts that, the game should of gone to penalties. Looking at it, the referee couldn't see it because of the amount of players in the way, I'm surprised the linesmen didn't see it. It's easy to blame Thierry Henry but if it was the other way round would the Irish players have owned up. We see it week in week out in the premiership by all nationalities and only once or twice have you ever seen a player own up (Arshavin and Fowler I think). Not that I'm saying it's acceptable. Should there be a replay? No. It would create a situation that whenever someone is unhappy about a decision we would have replays. It would be farcical. I am though on the video replay bandwagon in it's support. I think you could allow managers to challenge a decision at the cost of a substitution, if they are wrong.

The whole 'should they be seeded' argument is something I have mixed views about in one hand the seeded system is what ensured Ireland had Georgia, Cyprus and Montenegro in their group rather than England, Spain and Germany. I do think though that seeding gives the bigger teams an unfair advantage. Ireland can have few complaints about getting France in the playoff, out of the second place teams they were last. So you either let the top 4 qualify without a playoff (Russia finished top but yet didn't qualify, is that fair?) or you give the better teams an advantage. Robbie Keane suggesting FIFA is against Ireland is sour grapes I feel, was is bias that helped Slovenia beat Russia or Croatia knock England out in 2008.

Anyway back to the world cup. I'm really looking forward to it. I think there are a handful of teams that think they can win Brazil, Spain, Italy, Germany, England, Portugal, Argentina (they won't) and France. I'm looking forward to seeing Ivory Coast, Ghana and Australia. The underdogs North Korea, Honduras and Algeria I think will all struggle although I think Honduras may surprise a few.

The draw for the world cup is in a couple of weeks and I'll write more then.

Jose Saramago 'Journey to Portugal'

I've been reading this book by the famous Portuguese author and his extensive travels around Portugal. In all honesty it's not the greatest book I've ever read but there is a extract that really sums up how I feel at the end of my travels.

'But that is not true. The journey is never over. Only travellers come to an end. But even then they can prolong their voyage in their memories, in recollections, in stories. When the traveller sat in the sand and declared: "There's nothing more to see" he knew it wasn't true. The end of one journey is simply the start of another. You have to see what you've missed the missed the first time, see again what you already saw, see in the springtime what you saw in the summer, in daylight what you saw at night, see the sun shining where you saw the rain falling, see the crops growing, the fruits ripen, the stone which has moved, the shadow that was not there before. You have to go back to the footsteps already taken, to go over again or add fresh ones alongside them. You have to start the journey anew. Always. The traveller sets out once more.'

Berlin

The world could learn a lot from Berlin, it certainly could take note of the beer and currywurst, it could copy the design of the Reichstag, it could learn a thing or two about making cars. Most of all though the world could learn about how to deal with some of the darker parts of it's history. I've never been to a city that has been so honest about it's gloomy past, it's refreshing. There is no shadowing over the atrocities of Nazi Germany or the divide of Berlin. Actually, it highlights what it is has learned from those times, the Reichstag design is solid proof of that.
I wish more cities and countries were like this. I'm British-Portuguese so I know full well how to gloss over the darker parts of our history and having spent time in Japan this must seem a completely novel concept to them.

Straight from the off there are reasons to appreciate Berlin. The Brandenburg gate masterpiece was built as a Prussian monument of peace and was taken by the invading Napoleon, only to be recaptured by Prussia in 1814. They added a Iron Cross and placed it back above the aptly named Paris Square (they later placed the French Embassey in the glare of the statute, who said Germans didn't have a sense of humour). I went on a free walking tour, which although isn't usually my thing was extremely good. I fully recommend it. We saw where Hitler killed himself (now a car park) and saw the main sights of Berlin.

We went to the Jewish memorial which is dead center in Berlin. It's very well designed and although no actual meaning was meant by the design I felt that each block represented a family that was unique it's own way but was systemically killed by the ruling Nazi party (hence the grid like way the blocks are situated). The museum below was although slightly depressing was a useful reminded of the history that took place not just in Berlin but all over central Europe.

We build up images in our mind of what certain things should like and sometimes are shocked by the reality. The Berlin Wall was one case in point. I was slightly underwhelmed by it. I think in my mind I had though up this giant impenetrable wall that was not only a curse but a feat of engineering. The truth though is that it was rather thin and with the help of a friend I could of gone over it. The reality does seem more logical than my imagination.

I could go on about the sights and history of Berlin but that would be unfair because Berlin was an awesome city to live in. There isn't the pretentious arty feel that Paris portrays or the Latin flair in Madrid. There was a slightly anarchist, who cares kind of feeling. The bars will win no style awards but yet you can feel comfortable and relaxed in them all. Germans are more like England than any other European nation is. There is a take it or leave it feel to the city that I like. I went drinking with Jeremy and Jessica almost every night and it was good to put the world to right over several beers. One beer in particular stuck in my memory for all the wrong reasons. I've never been tipsy after one pint but this was strong.

All in all Berlin was the kind of city I would like to live in for a while and will certainly go back to.