Footballers often come under attack from the press for various reasons, a case in point being John Terry's private life which has been subject to scrutiny for the past few days. Thankfully however, it is not often that footballers come under fatal gun attacks carried out by radical political groups as was the case with the Togo national team who were on their way to the African Cup of Nations Tournament in Angola.
A separatist group, known as FLEC, fighting for the independence of Cabinda - the province where the Togo players were travelling through, claimed responsibility for the attack. This attack killed 3 people and injured 9 others - the driver was one of those killed and some of the players including the reserve goalkeeper were badly injured as a result. No matter who was killed or injured, be they footballers or not, it is clear to see that this attack was an inexplicable act of violence that cannot be justified.
My main point here concerns the role of politics in football. In my opinion, it should have no role. But, inevitably it does. To an extent, I can understand FLEC's political viewpoint - they want a separatist region, well fair enough, I mean there's a number of people in Cornwall who want to have a separate region too. That doesn't mean you need to use violence to achieve your aims especially when the people you are shooting at have little say in how countries are run and which regions can be made separate or not. I fail to understand why they chose to attack Togolese players; perhaps they wanted more publicity or something. Infact, the exiled secretary-general of FLEC, currently based in France, claimed that the attack was not actually supposed to be aimed at the Togo players but at the Angolan forces who were heading the convoy. Whether this is true or not, it doesn't matter, it has nothing to do with football. Luckily, the bulk of the attack was accidentally aimed at the luggage coach otherwise the casualties could have been much higher.
Incidentally, there is a tinge of irony to this post as I am writing it on the eve of the African Cup of Nations final between Ghana and Egypt and on the day that CAF announced that it is going to ban Togo from participating in the next 2 African Cup of Nations tournaments and fine the team $50, 000 for withdrawing from the tournament because of government intervention. So, Togo are getting banned because of political involvement in football, but it was political involvement in football that caused them to get banned in the first place. Personally, I think it's absurd. Obviously, the Togo players were in shock and needed time to grieve and reflect on the events that they had been subjected to, so it was always going to be difficult to focus on the tournament. Although, there was quite a bit of confusion about whether to play in the tournament or not, it is not everyday that your fellow teammates and colleagues get injured or killed. I think that CAF should exclude the politics and just take into consideration the effect of the attack on the players.
The Togo national team are planning on appealing and I hope they get the right decision. As the Togo midfielder, Thomas Dossevi, said, "We are a group of footballers who came under fire and now we can't play football any more. They [CAF] are crushing us."
So what does this all mean for South Africa? After all this is the first time a World Cup tournament has been held in the African continent. Although, Danny Jordaan was quick to distance South Africa's security measures from the Angolan attack, more pressure has been put on South Africa's security forces to prevent attacks like this from occurring at the tournament itself. South Africa itself is no stranger to political violence and there is no doubt that this attack, which took place not so far away, will continue to rest uneasy with the organisers of the event.
