AFC/SCSA, are there 2 New Zealands?

By Clem Oluwole 

On February 6, this year, I wrote a piece in this column entitled “A disturbing silence”. In that piece, I expressed concern over the undeclared stand of the African Football Confederation (AFC), an arm of the Supreme Council for Sports in Africa (SCSA) over the qualification of New Zealand for Spain ’82.

Ever before the New Zealanders qualified to go to Spain, I implored both the SCSA and AFC to begin to do their homework. This was because judging by the form of the New Zealanders, they were surely going to make it to Spain. And they did!

It has become a tradition for Africa to turn its back on competitions in which New Zealand is taking part. In fact, one can put it this way… that New Zealand has succeeded in alienating Africa and its sympathizers from major world competitions since the 1976 Olympic Games held in Montreal. I am even quite sure that if the last Olympic Games were held in the West, Africa would have stayed back. New Zealand was not in Moscow because the West boycotted.

The only isolated occasion at which Africa succeeded in keeping New Zealand away was in Rome during the 1981 World Cup Athletics Championships.

I still feel like producing some excerpts from the piece of February 6: ‘I am not unaware that the Federation of International Football Association (FIFA), organizers of the World Cup, expelled South Africa from its membership several years back. What makes me uncomfortable is the apparent silence from the AFC and SCSA quarters now that the racists’ friends have found their way to Spain. This disturbing silence suggests to me that the New Zealanders will get away with their crime this time….

‘I also would not want to feel that the SCSA under the able leadership of Mr. Abraham Ordia of Nigeria is now looking the other way just because Yaoundé, where SCSA headquarters is based, has qualified to go to Spain for the first time… and so the sleeping dog should not be disturbed. That will be double standard’.

I still stand by that insinuation.

However, there was a recent statement credited to the AFC boss, Mr. Y. Tessema of Ethiopia. The AFC chief was quoted (and I will want to think that he was misquoted) as saying that Africa should not boycott Spain ’82 because of New Zealand’s presence. Buttressing his argument, Mr. Tessema was reported to have said that it was better for Africa to turn its back on games at which its boycott impact would be greatly felt. Looking at Tessema’s argument on the surface, one is tempted to swallow it hook, line and sinker. But viewing it beyond the surface, the whole thing as it stands now amounts to running with the hare and hunting with the hounds.

The SCSA has of late been harping on boycotting the next Commonwealth Games because of New Zealand. And going by AFC’s argument, our boycott of the Brisbane Games will have an impact on the Games. I really do not understand the kind of impact the AFC boss meant. We are yet to be told that those Games abandoned by African nations were cancelled by the organizers because of the boycott impact.

Methinks it is high time we stopped messing around. Blood, they say, is thicker than water. The whites do not reckon with us. If they do, then how come they prefer one white nation to several black nations?

The AFC/SCSA should stop being hypocritical. As a matter of principle, Africa does not stay under the same sporting roof with New Zealand. To say that a boycott impact will not be felt in Spain is like trying to pull the wool over our eyes. If we should boycott the Brisbane Games, then we must turn our back on Spain ’82.

But if we must go to Spain, then I will want to be convinced that there are two New Zealands… one that fraternizes with apartheid is going to Brisbane and the other that sympathizes with our cause is the one that has qualified for Spain ’82.

We must be very careful; otherwise our detractors will use this hypocritical stand to undermine our principles.





(Culled from Saturday Commentary, first published on April 24, 1982).