Back in 2006, the same year the CAF chose Angola to host the African Cup of Nations, Kofi Annan, then Secretary General of the United Nations, wrote a short but eloquent opinion piece in the International Herald Tribune. The commentary was entitled “At the UN, how we envy the World Cup” and it described the fervour and world-wide interest such an event always garners.

He contrasted this with the world’s attitude toward his own organisation, wishing for countries to compete not only through their football skills but also by “openly vying for the best standing in the table of respect for human rights, and trying to outdo one another in child survival rates or enrolment in secondary education.”

After the shocking events in Angola on January 8, when the Togolese football team’s bus was attacked by separatists in Cabinda, one cannot help but think of a new comparison between football and global politics, and one that is significantly more negative than Kofi Annan’s envy of the World Cup. Without a doubt, the events in Cabinda gave a very sour start to a much-anticipated football event, held ironically in the year the African Union has named the “Year of Peace and Security in Africa”.

With the targeting of the Togolese team’s bus, we are reminded, as with the Munich Olympics in 1972, that not even sporting events are free from politics. As remarked by Annan four years ago, football is indeed a sport that “everybody on the planet loves talking about,” so anybody with an interested agenda- from well-meaning football organisations to low-level criminals- recognises the power of such a well-loved and pervasive sport. Whether to promote development or send a political message, football is no longer just used for fun and exercise.

Thus, even the decision of where to host football cups has become politicised, with the FIFA deciding to locate these events in “developing” nations, so as to boost these countries’ economic standings. This logic has been carried out under FIFA President Sepp Blatter, who has recently crusaded for events to be held in Africa (the World Cup in South Africa and the World U-17 and U-19 tournaments in Nigeria and Egypt respectively). It can also be speculated that the Confederation of African Football (CAF) decided to locate the African Cup of Nations in Angola for very similar reasons, as an opportunity for the country to develop its facilities, infrastructure and tourism sector. The January 8 attack begs the question of whether sports events should be used as tools for development, especially when safety and security are still major concerns in the host country. 

Once the CAF elected to hold the African Cup of Nations in Angola, the host country set about preparing the event.  In this particular case, Angola built four brand new stadiums, and it can be suggested that the Angolan government purposefully chose to set a stadium for the African Cup of Nations in Cabinda, in a political move to prove to the outside world that peace and stability had been restored to that region, even as it remains highly militarised. It is worth querying whether this choice was fully considerate of the football players’ safety. Indeed, Cabinda is an exclave of Angola, sandwiched between the Democratic Republic of Congo and Congo Republic, with considerable offshore oil reserves which account for close to 60% of Angola’s oil exports. Since decolonisation, when it was forcibly annexed to Angola despite its claims to a distinct identity, history, and culture, it has been the stronghold of various independence movements and has experienced continued turmoil ever since. As if aware of the poor choice of this location for a stadium, it is interesting to note that the description of the Cabinda venue on the CAF website is considerably shorter than those of the Luanda, Benguela and Lobango sites.

The consequences of the attack have reached far beyond Angola. Rodrigues Mingas, the leader of the separatist movement that claimed responsibility for the attack, supposedly lives in exile in France, a fact which has added an additional international dimension to the Cabinda attack. Tensions arose internationally when the French government was criticized by Angola as not taking appropriate measures against Mingas, with an Angolan minister calling for Mingas’ extradition from France.

Meanwhile, in Togo, politicians seized the issue of the attack to criticise or praise their government’s controversial decision to have its team return home, using this issue as one of many in light of the presidential elections coming up in February of this year. They too recognised football as an issue that touches their citizens’ hearts, and sought to bank on this attachment by taking their own stands on the attacks. 

Even the common debate surrounding the Togolese team’s repatriation to Lomé has been tainted with political connotations. Using geopolitical and strategic terms, some commentators have noted that the Togolese team should not have gone home, since leaving Cabinda would mean that they let the “terrorists win”. Certainly, terrorist tactics cannot be allowed to succeed in instilling widespread fear or impeding the continuation of the African Cup of Nations. However, the fact that these terrorists’ goal was not to make the Togolese team leave, but rather to call attention to themselves and defy the Angolan government, is seldom taken into account in this kind of rhetoric. In a statement given to FRANCE 24 on January 11, Mingas claimed they“did not target Togo, but the Angolan army” and “are fighting for the complete liberation of Cabinda, against Angola’s illegal occupation.” Yet in deciding to attack the Togolese bus, it would seem that the separatist movement recognised the “media-attracting” power of football, since this attack has put Cabinda on the forefront of the international scene in a way that attacking the Angolan army probably would not. After the January 8 attack, a previously little-mentioned Cabinda made international headlines and was on everybody’s lips, even though the story of its struggle for independence from Angola is far from being recent news. Should we worry that the world’s concern for geopolitical unrest can only be harnessed through a sport?

For Annan in 2006, international football games were events in which people came together, as “part of the family of nations and peoples, celebrating our common humanity”.  Whilst this is certainly true, another dimension needs to be added to this picture: therefore, even as we watch the coming football matches and cheer for all our favourite teams, we shouldn’t forget that behind the excitement, behind the goals and penalties, and behind the all-star players, there is and will always be politics. And in politics, as in football, there will always be clear winners and losers.  

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