Confederations Cup hands 'battered' Russian image timely respite

Starters for next year’s Fifa World Cup feast are being served in Russia from Saturday.

I don’t know whose side you’re on but speaking in my capacity as a hopelessly devoted fan of Cameroon who often endures more than his fair share of suffering, I am courageously looking forward to a good meal.

It is two days before the kick-off to the 2017 Confederations Cup as I write this but I have not heard that the players are threatening not to play unless they are paid their money up front and in hard cash. That is very good news indeed.

As I have done since 1979 for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, I will be rooting for Cameroon and because like Fifa – please don’t growl - I like successful football tournaments, the other team I will be supporting is Russia.

The home team should always reach the final, else the feast will be badly depleted. I hope for a Russia-Cameroon final. Everybody else, God help you.

The Fifa Confederations Cup is a dry run for the World Cup. It is competed for by the champions of the six continents alongside the World Cup holders and hosts of the next edition. This year, Russia, Germany, Australia, Chile, Mexico, New Zealand, Portugal and Cameroon are battling it out for the honours.

I have been monitoring the preparations in Russia for these competitions since February this year and have noted with jealous admiration how Fifa has been checking the boxes for Russia. The hosts have been ahead of schedule on all scores – infrastructure, security, hospitality, everything.

(Please, please, I beg you, don’t ask me how Kenya is preparing to host the miniscule 2018 African Nations Championships because I want my blood pressure to remain normal. You read the reports for yourself in Nation Sport this week.

I don’t know whether the CAF inspection official who was reportedly taken ill mid-tour was overcome by the horror he witnessed but I pray for his quick recovery).

Whenever I am reading anything about Russia from the Western media, it doesn’t matter if it is tea that I am drinking. I make sure to have a dish of table salt near me so that I can read while taking pinches of it, however unpalatable the taste. This is because since I became literate, I noted with dismay that as far as the Western media is concerned, hardly anything good can come out of Russia.

We were together with US and its allies during the days of the Cold War and we learnt to absorb everything they told us unquestioningly. Thus you might be forgiven to conclude that the Russians hold a patent to invading other countries, doping in athletics or interfering in other peoples’ elections. Only problem is, if you substituted the name Russia with America, those activities would pass the most elementary fact checker.

I have no idea how the Americans became so successful at making us believe that Russia is the source of darkness. If the name Russia is mentioned near you, the first thing that comes to your mind is that something bad is about to happen. Some Kenyans own America’s “Russia problem” more than Americans themselves.

Indeed, the Russians have been caught doping. But then, so have Americans, Germans, Jamaicans, Chinese, Canadians and Kenyans, too. But like all other nefarious activities, if your news source is only American media, you could think that doping copyright documents are somewhere in a Moscow vault.

The truth is that all that cacophony about Russians doping amounts to making the strange case that I am better than you because I think your doping is worse than mine. But then, we are Kenyans and it is normal for us to hear matatu drivers accusing boda boda riders of flouting traffic rules.

When the Soviet Union, as Russia was called then, organised a mass boycott of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games, Americans acted really hurt. They gave us sanctimonious lessons on freedom of movement and human rights. I was paying only half attention. I kept thinking: “but you guys started this thing!” They had orchestrated the boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics and the Russians were just paying them back in their own currency.

All countries that have hosted the World Cup or the Olympic Games do so to achieve a goal – for better or for worse. For example, South Africa (2010) wanted to showcase the racial harmony of a rainbow nation and salute the life-long work of its global icon, Nelson Mandela. They succeeded, although everybody agrees that it is still work in progress.

(The diabolical opposite of this was Berlin 1936 when Adolf Hitler sought to prove Aryan racial supremacy with the Olympics of that year. The ambition came a cropper with Jesse Owens’ four gold medals).

Through the Tokyo Olympics of 1964, Japan sought to showcase its technological prowess with the launch of the bullet train, the Shinkansen. In 1978, the Argentine military junta tried to use the World Cup to shore up patriotic fervour at a time of political and economic turmoil.

Sometimes, the efforts of these countries have pleasant, unplanned for outcomes. For example, Mexico never imagined that its 1970 World Cup would result in the beautiful game reaching its highest state of splendour.

IGNORE STORIES

On Saturday, as I always do, I am ignoring all those stories from the American media about its old enemy, Russia. I don’t believe a thing about them until I have proof of wrong doing from neutral sources. I have no doubt that the 2017 Confederations Cup and the 2018 World Cup will be a success. I am not paying too much attention to the over 8,000 police and National Guard troops who have been deployed to provide security. I expect that to happen in the error of terrorism as a way of life.

What I am looking forward to is marvelling at what people can do to make a party a truly memorable experience.

During the 1980 Olympics, rain clouds from a distance started drifting towards Moscow, threatening to wreck the opening ceremonies. But the organisers were perfectly prepared for such a scenario. They dispatched planes to seed the clouds so that it rained elsewhere. The opening ceremonies were picture perfect. That is what I call seriousness of purpose.

For as long as I have written this column, many readers have asked me why Kenya is a midget in football. I point out to the lack of a national youth development system. But I quickly add that that is the visible infrastructure. There is critical software and it is to be found in the size of people’s hearts.

Kenya is a mean country when it comes to treating of its footballers, indeed all its sportsmen and women. It robs, and then discards them.

And young people see things. This story from the 2003 Confederations Cup can help us to see how kinder people do it: Marc-Vivien Foé was a member of the Cameroon squad to that edition of the tournament in France. On June 26, Cameroon faced Columbia in a semi-final at the Stade de Gerland in Lyon.

Standing in the centre circle all by himself in the 72nd minute, Foe collapsed. Unaware of the gravity of what had just happened, his team mates carried on with the game, which they proceeded to win 1-0 to reach the final. Meanwhile, off the pitch, every effort to restart Foe’s heart failed and 45 minutes later, he died.

His death shocked the world. Cameroon staged a state funeral for him. It also posthumously decorated him with the title of Commander of the National Order of Valour.

In England, Kevin Keegan, the manager of Foe’s former club Manchester City, announced that out of respect, the club would no longer use the Number 23 jersey that Foe used to wear. At Maine Road, they put up a memorial for him. The tunnel which players use to head out to the stadium, known as the Walk of Pride, was also inscribed with a tribute to Foe.

Lens, another former club, named an avenue for him near the Felix Bollaert Stadium. And for the same reasons given by Man City, it withdrew the Number 17 jersey that he wore during the five seasons he turned out for them. Finally, before the kick-off to the final of the 2009 Confederations Cup at Ellis Park Stadium in Johannesburg between the United States and Brazil, Foe’s 14-year-old son was given a chance to eulogize his father in a brief memorial speech.

All the countries and clubs associated in one way or another with Marc-Vivien Foe above are heavyweights of the game. In part, this is because they know something about giving back to those who fly their flags in the sports field. Kenya does not. And that is one big reason why, when it comes to the beautiful game, whose test run for next year’s World Cup kicks off today in Moscow, Sochi, St Petersburg and Kazan in Russia, we are anonymous bystanders.