Vuvuzela - African football is too colonised

South Africa 2010 World Cup symbol

I have been unfortunate not to see the beginning of the 2017 Russia Confederation Cup matches so far. I did not even witness the Opening Ceremony.

Please enlighten me if there was a minute of silence or an honour for Cheick Tiote, as has been the case especially for Marc-Vivian Foe.

Yesterday I watched both draws; Cameroon 1 -Australia 1 and Chile 1 - Germany 1. There was a huge element of disappointment for me.


The tournament has lost its shine somehow. Since the inception in the late 1990s when South Africa and Brazil among others, there was a clear crescendo in both quality and entertainment value.

It was a pale show of great shows put by the great Cameroonian side with the likes Samuel Eto'o, Patrick Mboma, Oman Biyik, Thomas Nkono; that Bafana Bafana side with David Nyathi, Sizwe Motaung, Doctor Khumalo and others.

The last night football fixtures proved otherwise. Germany did not help by bringing a development side to the tournament. It is a great initiative for their future but a great disservice to the game.

Fifa must must allow such to happen. Football results are not paramount when developing a team.Not that the young boys did not try. They gave their all, but at that top level of the game, we do not want novices.

This brings me to the point of today; Fifa double standards. The Fifa Fair Play Credo stipulates that players and teams must play to win. Yet, they allowed that clowning to happen.

We have seen that when non-Africans express themselves by fancy footwork, like Lionel Messi, they applaude and sing raises. If Africans execute such skills, faces change colour and the language too - showboating, grand standing.

That is what we do. The Cameroon match lacked that spark that makes football the beautiful game Pele talked about. This tournament has no 'Jogo e'bonito'. 

I am now concerned by the lack of African football growth. Is there any chance things will change? Look at the natural death of the vuvuzela. 

A vuvuzela was once a symbol of the South African game. During the South Africa 2010 Fifa World Cup, so much noise was made about the unsuitability of the decibels of the instrument. 

Of course, then Fifa President, Sepp Blatter refused to publicly condemn our culture, but there was undercover drive to nullify it. Two Fifa World Cups later, South Africans do not carry the vuvuzela to matches. 

African football is colonised.