{"id":367026,"date":"2011-04-04T02:27:00","date_gmt":"2011-04-04T02:27:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ghanamma.net\/2011\/04\/04\/tales-from-bamako\/"},"modified":"2011-04-04T02:27:00","modified_gmt":"2011-04-04T02:27:00","slug":"tales-from-bamako","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/04\/04\/tales-from-bamako\/","title":{"rendered":"Tales From Bamako"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
<\/p>\n
\n

\n\"The<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Robson Sharuko<\/p>\n

1 April 2011<\/p>\n

\n

CHRISTOPHER JACOME, a teenage Colombian football fan, made more headlines around the world, in the shadow of his death, than he ever made in his seventeen years on this planet, some of which were spent supporting his beloved club Cucuta Deportivo. Jacome was shot dead while playing football in a park in his hometown and his friends decided to take his body, and the coffin, to a Primera Division clash between Cucuta Deportivo and Envigado last Saturday.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Reports indicate that members of the ultra Cucuta Barra del Indio Supporters Group arrived on the day of the match, to pay their respects at the funeral service, and decided their slain friend deserved the ultimate send-off – a dance with his heroes one last time.<\/p>\n

How the fans managed to smuggle the coffin into the stadium, no one knows. But what is known is that they arrived at the stadium with just 30 minutes remaining in the game, and their team losing 0-1, and news agencies have captured the images of the coffin being passed around in the stand housing the ultras among the home team.<\/p>\n

Strangely, shortly after the coffin started to be passed around, Cucuta found the energy to push forward and they equalised in a match that eventually finished 1-1.<\/p>\n

Cucuta’s medic, Julio Rivera, told Colombia Reports: “They don’t let in the “barras” (fanatics) but yes, a cadaver.<\/p>\n

This is the only part of the world where this has happened.”<\/p>\n

Police have launched investigations trying to establish how the coffin passed through security at the ground and was allowed to be held aloft in the stands with police spokesman Colonel Alvaro Pico describing the incident as ‘unfortunate’.<\/p>\n

Colombia has had its fair share of the good, the bad and the ugly that comes with its football – from goalkeeper Rene Higuita’s antics to its endless links with the underworld that controls the big money that comes from the booming drug trade in that South American nation.<\/p>\n

But the spectacular stunt pulled by the ultras in bringing the body of Jacome to a stadium last Saturday was out of this world.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Ironically, Jacome – whose death will forever be linked to football (the game he was playing when he was shot dead and the game where his coffin made headlines) – was born in the year that Andreas Escobar was gunned down in the parking lot of a Medellin night club.<\/p>\n

Escobar, the gentle defender known as “El Caballero del Futbol” or “The Gentleman of Football,” played for the Colombian national team and scored a goal in a 1-1 draw against Englandin a friendly international at Wembley in 1988.<\/p>\n

On June 22, in a 1994 World Cup finals group match against the United States, Escobar stretched to try and cut a cross from John Harkes but turned the ball into his own net and Colombia, heavily favoured to win the tournament after a five-goal destruction of Argentina in Bounes Aires during the qualifiers, lost 1-2 and crashed out in the first round.<\/p>\n

Two weeks later, on July 2, Escobar was alone, in the parking lot of a Medellin night club, when three men and a woman approached him, an argument ensured and one of them produced a handgun and shot him 12 times, reportedly shouting Goal, after every shot. Many believe he was killed by the Mafia because of the losses that it might have suffered in gambling stakes for Colombia to win the match against the United States and, the fact that the man who was later convicted of the murder worked for the underworld, put that into perspective.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Escobar died 45 minutes later, after having been rushed to hospital, just a month before he was due to wed dentist Pamela Cascardo, the girlfriend he had dated for five years, and the following year Humerto Castro Munoz confessed to killing Escobar and was jailed for 43 years, later reduced to 26 years, before being released from prison on good behaviour in 2005. Today the Andreas Escobar Project, unveiled by his family following his death, is meant to assist underprivileged children in Colombia by taking them away from the streets and giving them a chance to find a way to live through playing football.<\/p>\n

Andreas Escobar’s death touched Colombia and 120 000 people attended his funeral and, even up to this day, many fans of his old Medellin club come to watch home matches carrying photographs of the slain football star whose death touched them all.<\/p>\n

The Shadow Of Death<\/strong><\/p>\n

Three weeks ago, on March 13, Dynamos lifted the NetOne Charity Shield at Rufaro as the domestic season embraced a new campaign and a new sponsor on the rapidly changing football landscape.<\/p>\n

On that Sunday, very few people chose to remember that it marked the seventh anniversary of the tragic death of CAPS United players Blessing Makunike, Shingi Arlon and Gary Mashoko in a horrific car accident as they returned home from a league match.<\/p>\n

As time passes by, the painful memories of that tragic day begin to fade from the memory of the domestic football family and interestingly CAPS United, who played a pre-season friendly against FC Platinum on the eve of the seventh anniversary of the death of their stars, didn’t even care to wear black armbands.<\/p>\n

Today the fans of the Medellin club that Pablo Escobar used to play for still carry his pictures into their home games and the mayor of the city unveiled a statute in honour of the slain star, who died 17 years ago, while we appear to be quickly forgetting the memory of our stars who perished just seven years ago.<\/p>\n

The fans of Manchester United still mark the day the plane carrying the Busby Babes crashed in Munich and wiped out a generation of the team’s finest players on that fateful day in 1958, even though the event happened 53 years ago now, but we seem to be in a hurry to forget our stars who met their cruel fate just seven years ago.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

But then this is the same game that forgot those who died when they went to the National Sports Stadium to support their beloved Warriors in that World Cup qualifier against Bafana Bafana at the turn of the millennium.<\/p>\n

The same game that forgot Steve “The Dude” Kwashi, injured in a road crash in the line of duty as he returned home from his team’s away match, the game that forgot Francis Madziva, the super leftback that was robbed away from us by cruel fate when he was injured in another accident.<\/p>\n

Maybe it’s asking for too much from a game that has always turned its back on its stars, the moment their playing days are over, and we have all probably seen the sad treatment former players receive at the hands of either their former clubs or their former opponents.<\/p>\n

Maybe that explains why domestic football, unlike its cousins across the Zambezi, has never valued the importance of former players in its administrative structures.<\/p>\n

Thompson Dondo, the chief executive of Kiglon Football Club, believes our national game has been dying a slow and painful death for a long time now and, while things might look normal on the outside, he feels Zimbabwean football is a sporting discipline slowly sinking into its grave.<\/p>\n

Dondo, who spent years working in England before deciding to come and play a part in the destiny of his motherland, argued this week that virtually all the Premiership clubs were living in the shadow of death, threatened by rising operational costs, suffocated by poor funding and ignored by sponsors.<\/p>\n

Little Kiglon brewed a shocker on Sunday when they beat Dynamos 1-0 at Rufaro but rather than the occasion turning into a triumphant moment for the minnows, Dondo said it was a day of reflection of the massive challenges they face and, rather than enjoy the victory, they were burdened by the grim picture confronting the team.<\/p>\n

Yes, they had beaten Dynamos, he told me, but where were they going to get money to pay the players and coaches, with the big chunk of their earnings from gate receipts that day having gone into the coffers of the Harare City Council and other service providers?<\/p>\n

Where were they going to get the money to foot the costs of preparing and travelling to Bulawayo this weekend for a tie against Zimbabwe Saints?<\/p>\n

To Dondo these questions were more important that celebrating the three points that were on the board and, after a year in which they had tried to sell the team’s franchise, the sad reality was that Kiglon was still their baby and they had to find the debt to foot the costs.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\nMore News on allAfrica.com<\/b><\/legend>\n<\/fieldset>\n

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