By Takura Zhangazha*
The UEFA 2024 tournament recently held in Germany is now over. The Kingdom of Spain (Espana) are the new European champions. They won it in what many sports pundits referred to as an admirable and entertaining style, not only against their eventual finalist rivals England but generally throughout the tournament.
Most colleagues and friends I would interact with about this tournament were avid England supporters.
Mainly because they are also fans of the English Premier League (EPL) and their favourite players that were also in that country’s national side.
Others were somewhat nonchalant. They just wanted to enjoy what they referred to as good football.
From the many competing teams which sometimes included Spain, Netherlands and Germany in random order. And depending on the game they were watching, interested in or in some cases placed speculative bets on.
But truth be said, it was a decently exciting tournament for many Zimbabwean and African soccer fans.
I mention the national or continental locations of the fans because I can only debate my next points on that basis. That of being a Zimbabwean and an African fan of the beautiful game that is global football. Even with all its inequalities and controversies around race, colour and class.
My particular interest in the tournament was accentuated by the Spanish team at this UEFA 2024. While it had not generally been expected to do well in the tournament because of either its youthfulness or the fact that it did not have the usual big name and game stars as of old, it managed to reach the finals undefeated in all of its seven (7) games.
From its very impressive team two young players of colour stood out as the tournament progressed.
And as most football fans in Zimbabwe and Africa will know these were Nico Williams and Yamine Yamal.
They are both Spanish players of African origin with their own unique stories of their parents’ emigration to Spain to tell.
With Nico Williams being particularly unique because his parents are emigrants that crossed from the Spanish enclave in North Africa, Melilla, via the graveyard Sahara desert and the callous/ evil/ slave trade like Mediterranean Sea.
Yamal on the other hand is said to have a mother from Equatorial Guinea and a father from Morocco.
Now you may ask so what does this have to do with football, since most of us view the game as mere entertainment?
In the global scheme of things, the fact that these young emerging football stars Williams and Yamal (also at a global level) are the children of emigrants to Spain is an important point in how the issue of immigration is being handled not only in their country of birth but also in the broader European Union (including with the Brexiters in the United Kingdom)
But even more importantly the contradictions between the pride that their host country is showing to their sporting prowess while at the same time having even across Europe the equivalent of a ‘turn back the boats’ policy in the Mediterranean sea. Or the English channel.
I am sure this issue may not directly matter to either of them or even other soccer star children of emigrants across various leagues in Europe or North America who get their due recognition for their talent.
But this does not change the contradictions and borderline hypocrisy of playing for countries that are increasingly right wing, racist and anti-immigration.
Now when I posted about this on social media accounts that I do not own but use for free expression, a decent number of African colleagues asked about why we have Africans leaving the continent and dying in the Mediterranean in the first place.
Others were a little bit more brazen blaming African failures whether via political leaders or even hinting at their own inferiority complexes about how Europe is almost always the best place to either be or to have a modicum of material success. Even through sport.
It was like an almost ‘sort yourselves out in Africa’ to stop the emigration of young families. I did not ask how they thought that we should, as Africans ‘sort ourselves out’ But the tone and approach was clearly that we should mimic the global north (Europe and North America).
The only problem is that historically, colonially, neo-colonially and neo-liberally the global economic system will not allow us to do that without being subservient to either international capital as in its current fiat state. Nor will a majority of the people in the global north accept us as equals given their newfound majority rightwing and racist voting patterns.
Except perhaps as with the case of the Euro 2024 final tournament, when it comes to sport. And this probably not just for football. We are going to see the same trend at the Paris Olympics 2024 that also begin later on this month.
So yes, congratulations to Spain. Even greater congratulations to their nascent superstars Williams and Yamal together with their parents, their team mates.
But as Africans we need to understand the contradictions of sport and mainstream racism in those societies that we most admire to either be a part of or to be recognized by.
And the fact that despite our own conflicts on the African continent, and even our desires to emigrate to wherever and by many modes of transport, including in our naivety being smuggled, we should not be dying or being made to die like slaves in the Mediterranean sea.
*Takura Zhangazha writes here in his personal capacity (takura-zhangazha.blogspot.com )
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