Through an African’s eyes: Six vital lessons from the World Cup ‘fiesta’

What you need to know:

  • For a game whose global following is growing partly because of the swelling ranks of its female fans, it is embarrassing that yet again, there isn’t a single female referee – or assistant.
  • It is striking how many players in the Brazil World Cup play club football outside their countries.

So we are finally up to our necks in World Cup 2014, and what a tournament it has been! Full of surprises and upsets.

And, as if all that wasn’t enough, a Liverpool man and Uruguayan international, Luis Suarez, decided it was snack time and bit Italian defender Giorgio Chiellini. It was the third bite in Suarez’s career.

In all this drama, it is very easy to forget that the World Cup is not just about football. Its more enduring value is as a barometer of the state of the world.

So what non-football insights can we glean from Brasil 2014?

•The world is still racist and homophobic, but it is becoming a better place.

During the 2010 World Cup, the majority of French players were black. France has done particularly well in that regard, having featured the first black player, Raoul Diagne, in its national team in 1931.

They are fewer in the French team in Brazil, but that is compensated for by the fact that there are more racially diverse teams at the tournament

— with notable individuals in the Asian and South American teams.

We have also had racist chants and homophobic shouts, but beneath it all, World Cup 2014 tells us that the world generally continues to make progress in diversity. The irony is that Asia and Africa, that suffered some of the worst forms of racially-fuelled outrages in the past (colonialism and slavery), are the worst in the World Cup team diversity stakes.

•The world still has too many blind spots when it comes to women.

For a game whose global following is growing partly because of the swelling ranks of its female fans, it is embarrassing that yet again, there isn’t a single female referee – or assistant.

•Surprise! surprise! globalisation is still alive.

After the global financial crisis of the last eight years, many commentators declared that globalisation was over — that people were too hurt by faceless multinational financial and trade systems, and they were going back to the security of their national caves.

However, it is striking how many players in the Brazil World Cup play club football outside their countries. The European leagues are the most famous ones, yes, so we never stop to think of an American going to play club football in Canada (Canada has a league?), or some brave African going to play in Vietnam or Bangladesh!

NARROWING TALENT GAP

If the movement of the world’s leading footballers are anything to go by, then globalisation is still bubbling.

•A new world order is on the horizons.

The world’s “old” football superpowers — England, Italy, France, Spain — have had their worst World Cup outing in Brazil, and fresh-faced pretenders to the crown in the name of Costa Rica, Chile, Mexico and Algeria have thrived (so far, at least).

It is the way of our world. New powers come, old ones wither away. The only thing is, we are never sure when that will happen. It seems we are there again. Africa is rising, its population is swelling, Asia and Latin America are growing richer by the day, as most of Europe remains economically anaemic.

•The digital revolution is real.

One intriguing thing is that the stars of this World Cup are not the richest nations. And, clearly, the talent gap between players has narrowed or virtually disappeared. What happened?

I suspect it is something that many have noted before — the influence of online and video games. Unlike 20 years ago, even children in villages will get to play a game on their grandmothers’ mobile phone.

Video games are giving young people sports skills and knowledge beyond their borders, from some of the world’s best. The digital natives, so to speak, have come of World Cup-playing age.

•Blood is thicker than flags.

When 19-year-old Belgian player Divock Origi lit up the stadium… Kenyans on social media went bananas. And it wasn’t because he was the youngest Belgian to ever score a World Cup goal.

Origi’s father, Mike, is Kenyan, and played for Harambee Stars. He moved to Belgium and was playing for KV Oostende when Divock was born. Later, he played for Racing Genk. Divock, many quipped, scored Kenya’s first World Cup goal.

To borrow from the song "Hotel California" by the Eagles, you can check out of your country, but you can never leave.

Mr Onyango-Obbo is editor of Mail & Guardian Africa (mgafrica.com). Twitter:@cobbo3