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Board Gambling discussion
Re: Africa Football Discussion Thread || Current Topic: AFCON Qualifiers 2023.
by
buwaytress
on 14/06/2023, 10:05:23 UTC
So I ask: where is soccer in Africa evolving?

with so much corruption in soccer in africa, evolution is impossible, in soccer fields in africa only a few big teams can see the fields with many people watching, and the reason is simple: few people have the financial power to buy tickets and go watching the games, it is a sad scenario, corrupt managers do not watch the games, probably they should not even be a fan of any team, in Africa there are still problems of a country not being able to pay the player's salary when he represents the national team, things that they just embarrass africa
Not only do few individuals have the financial power to buy a ticket for a game, but many African nationals are less inclined to watch African games in the first place. It always seems as though we lack the enthusiasm to accomplish that due to our poor stadium management, the potential conflict that could result from opposing fans attacking one another, the absence of an effective game plan, and the officials' poor officiating.

When it comes to receiving good pay as an African player, our leaders perform poorly. They don't want to sponsor or pay the players properly because they don't think that football will bring them riches or add anything to their state's or nation's economy. Because of this, they are never as concerned about the welfare of all the players. Because of this, the players wouldn't play or give their all for the team they are playing for.

You guys talk about all these problems that are almost an exact template for the problems of football in Southeast Asia.

Regular people affording tickets? It's not as bad as Europe in terms of price, but in terms of percentage of minimum wage, a normal person has to give up 2% of his salary per game for the shittiest ticket.

Corrupt owners and states who mismanage? Check. Absent managers who are political appointments? Check. Salaries unpaid? Check.

But I highly doubt it's just a problem of salary -- I agree it needs to be fixed across all sports, because it is not seen as a viable career in Southeast Asia where pay is not certain, and pension is non-existent. We have gold medallists and Olympians fall into obscurity as soon as they are too old to compete.

Our peak was in the 70s to 90s, when we were playing amateurs and semi-professionals. Today it's professional football with higher salaries, but that didn't help the game or our overall rankings. It made stadiums nicer. It made jerseys nicer. Sponsorships glitzier. Loads of Balkan, South American, and African imports to make it look as if we're international. But football quality? F* me but I can't stand watching a game anymore. At least in the 1990s there were bucketfuls of spirit from the players.

but the problem is that all teams in my country have government companies as sponsors, they are public companies managed by the party that is governing my country, so the leaders of the teams are people from the party that is also governing my country country

Allow me to introduce you to Serie A then. Berlusconi just passed away and he is the symbol of how Italian football was for a long time deeply tied to political parties and Italian leadership. No need to wonder about corruption in Italy and football -- Juventus stripped of titles before, and now more recently again. After the PM's adventure with Milan, he bought Monza and took it up also.

So we can blame corruption, but we can also blame a general lack of interest in football development. You can have corrupt leaders who see football clubs as a passion project and make them successful. Of course, today, the scene is different as big teams are already owned now by China and USA (thinking of Inter and Milan anyway) but I believe you see the same in Russian league, proving that you can still have good footballing clubs even with corrupt leaders meddling in club ownership.

I still think it's down to structure, and will. Is football a big enough priority? In many African and Southeast Asian countries, unfortunately, it is not.