'The beautiful game'

The Confederation of African Football (CAF) are staging the Africa Cup of Nations in Angola…..a country with a violent past and fragile present. Where life expectancy and infant mortality are just about the worst in the world. A country that was consumed by a violent civil war for 27 years as soon as the Portuguese left in 1975.

And with 65% of Angola’s oil production coming from the enclave of Cabinda – a region where unrest replaced daily armed conflict in 2006 – telling Togo to play there was always going to be no more than just another ‘beautiful game’.

But then the Togo team was attacked by gunmen as its bus made its way from a training camp in the Republic of Congo to the venue in Cabinda City.

A faction of the Cabinda separatist rebel group, Front for the Liberation of the State of Cabinda, has claimed responsibility for the 30-minute machine-gun attack that left two Togolese officials and an Angolan bus driver dead.

Several Togo players were injured in the attack, some of them seriously.

Goalkeeper Kodjovi Obilale, who was shot twice, is in a stable condition, in intensive care in a South African hospital, after undergoing emergency surgery.

Angolan President Jose Eduardo dos Santos condemned the attack but said, ‘Despite the terrorist attack. Cabinda will remain a hosting city. There is no need to be afraid.’

I guess the Togo team were not reassured by Jose's public utterances and they returned home after Friday’s gun attack.

CAF resolved the conflicting reports concerning Togo's participation in the event, where they were due to play Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso and Ghana with a simple press release.

‘They are disqualified. This group (B) is a three-team tournament’, said the Confederation of African football.

What a crass statement delivered no doubt with thoughts turning to the 'conditions of insurance and liability'…..

‘Jogo bonito’