John Helm: Togo tragedy raises serious questions

Jan 13 2010 by Peter Barrow, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

THE atrocity in Angola last weekend – and let’s face it the ambushing of a coach carrying a football team and it’s officials, amounted to a horrific act of terrorism – poses more questions than answers.

Why on earth did the African football authorities sanction Cabinda, a notoriously dangerous area, as a venue for such a high-profile tournament?

Why was the party travelling by coach rather than plane?

How can anybody guarantee the safety of anyone else in these days of extreme violence worldwide?

And what are the motives of those Premier League managers now demanding the return of their players?

Taking Cabinda first, during the past 12 months I’ve been to various countries in Africa and been assigned highly trained security guards because of the risk of kidnapping, mugging and shooting.

Scary or what? Long briefings designed to alarm were deemed necessary and even if over dramatic, at times served their purpose.

Personal guards, heavily armed, even came with us to the golf course in Kaduna, Nigeria, and in Johannesburg we were told in no uncertain terms not to go more than 250 metres outside the Ellis Park Stadium otherwise we’d be entering the most dangerous area of the city.

Cabinda is definitely a no-go area.

FIFA is awash with money and has given massive hand-outs to some African countries to improve its stadiums and infrastructure.

Togo’s claim that they couldn’t afford to fly to Angola may be true, but surely the lives of their players was of paramount importance.

It’s futile for folk to ask an authority to guarantee the safety of 16 international football teams. How can anyone give that sort of guarantee in an age when fanatics blow up buildings and smuggle bombs onto planes ?

As for the managers demanding the return of their players, one suspects it is a ruse to get them back playing Premier League football rather than for any moral reasoning or concern for personal welfare.

The tournament goes ahead, but with FIFA events scheduled for countries like Trinidad, Colombia and Mexico over the next two years one has to wonder whether commonsense has gone out of the window.