Sports meets international politics again. Equatorial Guinea is a former Spanish colony in West Africa, an oil-rich statelet that has a horrific dictatorial government which steals all the oil money and leaves the population in desperate poverty. But they have lots of dough, and they have hired the Spanish world champion national soccer team to come play a friendly match this week, apparently to buy some prestige and respectability. So the question that El País poses is whether soccer should be politically neutral toward such unpleasant dictatorships. I say no, and that Spain should not have taken the money. For comparisons sake, on Spains Africa trip they are also going to play a friendly against South Africa. One of the factors that cost the apartheid regime there the most international prestige was the sports boycott. That was clearly the right thing to do And they should be doing the same with Equatorial Guinea.
Posted on: Sat, 09 Nov 2013 12:47:04 +0000
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