I read Soccer against the Enemy for my book review assignment and I learned a lot about how different countries view soccer. The country that stood out the most to me was Africa, mostly because they are the ones that struggled the most to gain talent recognition and exposure in the World Cup. The first World Cup tournament was in 1930 and Africa did not participate until 1970, forty years later. Even after that Africa was looked upon poorly when it came to soccer. They were only granted 2 positions in the World Cup, which was not proportional considering more than half the teams were European. When Africa lobbied FIFA for more positions, they declined their request because they did not think Africa was good enough. FIFA continually showed strong signs of racism toward African teams. In the 1998 bid for the World Cup between France and Morocco, Morocco was quickly over-ruled. However, it is encouraging to see that the tables are turning for Africa. The 2010 World Cup will be held in South Africa and they now have 5 representing positions. http://www.fifa.com/worldcup/destination/index.html
Cynthia Gonzalez Kin 332I TuTh 12:30pm
1 comment:
After reading Cynthia's post, it was very interesting to learn that African teams did not participate in the World Cup events until 1970. It is horrible that it took 40years before FIFA allowed Africans to participate in the World Cup because of racism but it's also amazing to see that the people of Africa did not give up the will to fight for their dreams to come true. Now Africa is not only involved in the World Cup, they are hosting it in 2010! As long as people keep fighting for what they believe in, there will always be changes to hopefully make the world a more united and happy place. I had the opportunity to go to a couple of the games during the World Cup that was hosted by Germany almost four years ago. It was such an amazing event seeing the whole world and all races coming together because of one thing we all had in common, the game of soccer. It was such an incredible experience knowing that people of all races were allowed to play in these games and not just a certain type. C. Summers Kin332I TuTh 9:30a.m. 007763091
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