MATHATHA TSEDU | Why I supported France against Morocco

Thursday evening could have been an agonising night watching the World Cup match between France and Morocco. While technically speaking this was Europe vs Afrika, in essence it wasn’t.

With 21 out of 26 of the French squad being of Afrikan descent, France was really a continental Afrikan team. Morocco is geographically in Afrika, but is essentially a non-Afrikan country. They do not consider themselves Afrikan and even tried, in 1987, to join the European Union where their hearts are. Europe turned them down.

Having been a founding member of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) in 1963, Morocco walked out in 1984 over its occupation of what is now the Saharawi Republic.

At worst, Morocco considers itself European, and at best an Arab state that unfortunately finds itself in Afrika. They are Afrikan when it suits them, like in 2004 when Fifa decided the 2010 World Cup would be hosted by an Afrikan country.

Suddenly, without any stadium to speak of, it opposed the South African bid and there was talk that money even changed hands. It took a frail Nelson Mandela to travel to Geneva to plead our case, and even then we beat Morocco by only four votes.

So on Thursday night, the choice for me was, as the Sprite advert says, very clear. I was going with the only Afrikan team on the pitch, even if the boys were flying the French flag.

The suspension of the red card against a US player without due process after a call from Trump effectively demanding same, is disgraceful

Just like the Argentinian game against Egypt, when their star player Lionel Messi missed a penalty, French captain Kylian Mbappe also missed. You should have seen the disappointment. And indeed, like Messi, with whom he is in a race to score the most goals in the tournament, Mbappe did not disappoint.

His inclusion and captaincy of the French team is interesting because his Cameroonian father took him to his home country a few years ago, wanting him to play for Cameroon. The story is told that some powerful official wanted a bribe to include young Mbappe in the squad. At which point Mbappe senior refused and they returned to Paris. And, as they say, the rest is history.

After the solitary goal he scored against Paraguay, Mbappe was attacked by a Paraguayan politician who called him a “son of a b…h”, a “colonised Cameroonian trying to pass himself off as French” and “a brute who has not even learnt to write”.

Mbappe did not take that lying down and called the senator, Celeste Amarilla, “a despicable woman” unworthy of her position. “Through your recklessness and brazen racism, the entire world has already forgotten the journey and the historic effort your players accomplished during this World Cup ... an incompetent woman who gives the worst possible image of her country.”

He said he would never allow the likes of Amarilla “the freedom to spread their hatred and racism across the world” without calling them out. So as the two teams trotted onto the field on Thursday, the image of the Senegalese goalkeeper who was harassed by Moroccan officials during the match as they took his towels away loomed large.

So too did Mbappe’s fight for the dignity of black players, particularly in Europe where they are called names or have bananas thrown at them as if they are monkeys.

So instead of agonising about who to root for, there was, for me at least, only one Afrikan team on the pitch deserving of my support — and they played very well.

Which is not what one can say about Fifa. Its president, Gianni Infantino, and his infantile behavior in licking the bottom of US President Donald Trump, has eroded what little credibility the organisation had after the scandals of his predecessor, Sepp Blatter.

The suspension of the red card against a US player without due process after a call from Trump effectively demanding same, is disgraceful. Who knows what would have happened if Belgium had not thrashed the US so convincingly that even Trump couldn’t dare demand a replay or a cancellation of the goals?

All the countries that constitute Fifa have a responsibility to rescue this organisation and the game of football from the seemingly corrupt leadership that calls the shots right now. When decisions are made on the pitch, decisions that are in many instances subjected to VAR in the glare of world TV, they should be respected by people like Infantino, even if they get calls from the new soccer expert inhabiting the White House.