Farce in Tunis that was passed off as football
What you need to know:
- Getting past an Arab team in a continental competition is akin to the Biblical camel passing through the eye of a needle.
- This is a fact testified by all African teams unfortunate enough to have visited the north.
- All in all, I congratulate the boys for showing that the Arabs are as beatable as our perennial whining neighbours, AFC Leopards.
My fiend the veteran broadcaster Leonard Mambo Mbotela still remembers the events of that Friday afternoon in early 1984 like they happened yesterday.
This was the day, after Gor Mahia sealed all loopholes the conniving Arabs by the name of Zamalek tried to use to rig their match, the Egyptians took their crooked ways right inside the pitch.
Gor Mahia was proving a hard nut to crack and the Sudanese referee decided to be Zamalek’s 12th player making one bad call after another.
The referee gave a totally dubious penalty against Gor Mahia, an act that saw the match descend into a melee. At the end of it all, the referee red-carded Gor’s Abbas Khamis Magongo (now deceased), before he left the pitch in an ambulance with armed policemen threatening K’Ogalo players.
The end result was that the Confederation of African Football (Caf) banned Gor Mahia and its star player Magongo got the nickname ‘Zamalek’.
We were to be vindicated three years later when Gor lifted the Nelson Mandela Cup, beating another Arab team Esperance.
I was reminded of these incidents when I watched the farce that passed for the Gor Mahia vs Esperance match in Tunis over a week ago.
The referee saw nothing wrong with the sheer terror meted out on Gor players and officials.
Even after Esperance coach stormed the pitch time and again. I wonder which hole such sorry looking match officials emerge from.
The truth of the matter is that the Arab-controlled Caf has two sets of rules it uses to govern continental football - one for the favoured fellow Arabs and another one for the rest of Africa.
It all boils down to the Arabs’ firm belief of superiority to the black race. Watch the videos doing rounds on the net how Arabs are running a slavery market in Libya for captured Africans.
Add to this the fact that Egypt’s official name is the Arab Republic of Egypt.
In light of all this, it is my considered view that it is time we split CAF into two - we leave the Arabs to run their own affairs and have the rest of Africa with a confederation of their own.
Mine is not a loser’s argument but something I have seen over the years which made my conviction - African football will never go anywhere so long as the Arabs are pulling the strings.
Getting past an Arab team in a continental competition is akin to the Biblical camel passing through the eye of a needle.
This is a fact testified by all African teams unfortunate enough to have visited the north.
All in all, I congratulate the boys for showing that the Arabs are as beatable as our perennial whining neighbours, AFC Leopards.
