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Search: ' Liberia'

Stories

From Arsenal to Bishop’s Stortford: the strange case of Christopher Wreh

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Having played a key role in Arsène Wenger’s 1998 triumphs, the striker became virtually anonymous and also larger than life, as Ian Davey discovered in WSC 212, October 2004

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Stunted growth

Nonsensical immigration rules and poor administration are holding back football across east Africa. Steve Bloomfield reports

McDonald Mariga should have been the first Kenyan to play in the Premier League. The fact he now finds himself playing for Internazionale means no one should feel too sorry for him. However, the failure of Manchester City to sign him on transfer deadline day highlights the problem with Britain’s immigration rules for football – rules which are holding back the development of the game in east Africa.

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Tale of disaster

Ivory Coast’s match with Malawi ended in horrific circumstances as 19 fans lost their lives. James Copnall investigates where things went wrong

The 19 dead and 132 injured in Africa’s latest stadium disaster, in Abidjan in Ivory Coast, suggest lessons haven’t been learned from past tragedies. On Sunday the problems started outside the stadium. Thousands of supporters, many without tickets, milled round the freshly painted bright orange walls of the Félix Houphouët-Boigny stadium. Music was blasting from inside the stadium, and queues outside stretched hundreds of metres even four hours before the 5pm kick-off. The World Cup qualifier, against a limited Malawi side, was expected to be an easy and morale-boosting victory. Local football fans needed a lift after the fiasco of the inaugural international tournament for African-based players in February, which Ivory Coast hosted and flopped at; the national side had also performed badly at an African junior competition in Rwanda. Perhaps more importantly, in a country where he has reached a staggering level of stardom, Didier Drogba was playing on home soil, for the first time in over a year. What happened next will be a topic of debate for a long time.

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Da, do, Ron, Ron, Ron…

Phil Town describes the man voted as the world's best player

The Portuguese media were convinced pretty much across the board that Cristiano Ronaldo had his name on the FIFA Player of the Year award. Just for good measure though, sports daily A Bola felt a little push might help and organised an online petition, signed by 123,559 people, which was sent to each of the 207 football associations of the voting countries. “Cristiano Ronaldo in Zürich to be crowned the best in the world,” chanced the same paper on the day of the ceremony.

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African Nations who’s who

Filippo Ricci tells his story of mistaken identity and the search for an elusive sticker

I have always had a love-hate relationship with picture cards. Despite many attempts, I never managed to finish a single football collection. I’ve always felt a bit ashamed of myself because of that.

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