Search: ' Zaire'

Zaire’s 1974 World Cup experience can be seen as comic but, as Jonathan Barker explains, reaching those finals was actually a high point in a country’s tragic history

If he were alive today, perhaps a chunk of former Zairean dictator Mobutu Sese Seko’s dubiously acquired fortune would be invested in a Premier League club. Instead his claim to football infamy is the role his government played in the dramatic rise and fall of his country’s football team. The Leopards were African champions in 1968 and 1974, but have gone down in history as the fall guys of the 1974 World Cup.

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  The joy felt in Togo and Angola at World Cup qualification risks turning to fear of humiliation after a poor continental championship. Ghana also have little to cheer about and, as Chris Taylor reports, only Ivory Coast of Africa’s five teams in Germany did really well in Egypt 

It was an exciting African Nations Cup tournament and when the champions were crowned in Cairo’s International Stadium they approached their debut in the forthcoming World Cup on German soil with high hopes. Little did they realise that disaster awaited them.

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Jack Bell reports on the outcome of a misguided offer to FIFA

Earlier this year a website called footofgod.com closed down. Hardly a unique oc­currence, but this one did not die through the reckless ambition of its creators or for any lack of demand for its ser­­vices. Instead it was kicked in the teeth by the football gods – FI­FA. Like many websites, footofgod.com was a labour of love, not profit. This ardour be­longs to Kadima Lonji, a 29-year-old native of Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo) work­ing in New York as director of web development for a major US department store chain.

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Ken Gall argues that the demise of the home internationals left Scotland chasing irrelevant targets such as the World Cup

With Björn Borg-style skinny-fit tracksuits and Go­la trainers in the shops, and Planet of the Apes set to be the summer’s hit movie, surely all we need to complete a nostalgia-fest for jaded thirty-somethings is the return of the home internationals. For Scots fans of that age, the memories linger: Brian Moore in the commentary box with Sir Alf; male relatives drinking cans of beer in the afternoon around the television; the Hampden roar; the offensive chants about Jimmy Hill.

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Sierra Leone and Liberia are not favourites to qualify from African World Cup Group B, but as Alan Duncan reports, just being there is an achievement

It’s a tough job being secretary general of any Football Association. Worse still if you are administering the footballing fortunes of a little-known, war-torn African country. Alimu Bah, the secretary general of the Sierra Leone FA, has had much to contend with since the start of his tenure in 1996. Coups, counter-coups, death threats, a rebel invasion and the recurring ills of African football: poor infrastructure, lack of funds and a less then perfect organisational structure.

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