Learning Football From Burkina Faso

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 Why not? A country must stand for something if it doesn’t want to become a joke. Burkina Faso, a country in sub-Saharan Africa, actually means “Land of Upright Men”. What an amazing name for a country!
And how did they figure out that it is more important for people to be upright than the flag? Yes, I know they are poor and drought-stricken.
Twenty-five million people live in a land area that is slightly less than ours, mainly through subsistence farming and livestock raising. But they believe it is better to be aspiring and upright than be rich and corrupt to the core!
Perhaps it has something to do with their national anthem: “Homeland or Death, We Will Overcome”. Burkinabes know that people overcome difficulties and setbacks through effort and struggle, not through cheating, forgery, lying, or switching sides. I like such people.
ADSNow here comes the fact that hurts to the core….Burkina Faso is 64 on the International Federation of Association Football (Fifa) rankings. In 2017, they were ranked 35! We are at 123.
Their main stadium houses only some 30,000 fans. They call themselves “The Stallions”, and I suppose that is because there are no harimau (tigers) in Africa.
Or perhaps they decided to call themselves stallions because these fleet-footed animals can be tamed and used in battle unlike the predatory and untamable tigers. And there is also this historical thing about their Mossi ruling classes claiming descent from a race of expert horsemen, the Nakomse.
Hard work and honesty
Anyway, like our “Tigers”, “The Stallions”, too, have never made it to the World Cup finals, but there isn't a Burkinabe who doesn't want his country to win football honours by beating their opponents fairly and squarely, donning their national colours and in their own natural skins. Call it real national pride.
An exhaustive search of their football history for scandals, corruption, forgery, match-fixing and other similar malpractices all came up with a nought. Nothing! Zilch! The people who run the national football body, Burkinabe Football Federation, are clearly upright people and surely God-fearing too.
So how did a dirt-poor country of upright people get to be about 60 places ahead of us in football rankings?
Burkina Faso is developing football at the grassroots level through significant government investments in infrastructure like stadiums and sports academies, alongside international support from Fifa and the Confederation of African Football (CAF) for grassroots programmes and funding.
It takes hard work and honesty to stay on your feet, stand upright and not be caught with your pants down!
In addition, they have an active system of grassroots scouting and talent development. A National Technical Training Centre has been established to focus on developing a steady pipeline of talent that will serve future generations of both players and coaches.
Money is hard to come by, so it is budgeted and spent carefully. And men who truly love football lead it.
A crop of talented players presently play in various European leagues, serving as role models for aspiring young Burkinabe footballers.
ADSThey include Bertrand Traore playing for Sunderland, Nasser Djiga at Rangers, Issa Kabore for Luton Town and Dango Quatara for Bournemouth and Brentford. They are also well-represented in the Dutch, German and Russian football leagues.
FAM scandal
Half a world away in a land that gave the world 1MDB and the idee fixe of senang, ease and comfort, our ruling football body, FAM, went for the easy fix of granting seven footballers “heritage” status by providing Fifa birth certificates to show their grandfathers were Malaysian-born.
Our super-efficient National Registration Department was key to us thrashing Vietnam 4-0. Joy and jubilation! And unbridled boasting!
But pride comes before the fall. Fifa insisted these birth certificates were doctored, giving a new twist to that old turn of phrase, “Don’t tell me grandfather stories”. The match results were overturned.
The seven players were banned and fined, and FAM shamed and fined, making us the laughing stock of the football world, an improvement from being the laughing stock of the financial world.
The seven ‘heritage’ players for Harimau MalayaSo how did we get caught with our pants down? The surnames of the so-called “heritage” players gives an insight into the mind of these shameless scammers.
They are not only downright crooked, unlike the upright Burkinabes, but they also know nothing about our history. We should ban them for life from holding any position in FAM, whether putting up the net, marking the lines or carrying balls.
“The Portuguese conquered Malacca some time ago,” said someone among these scammers, sounding very clever as he perused the names of the six players from Spain and Argentina, with names and surnames that reflected the same.
But to this smart aleck, Portuguese and Spanish names were all the same.
“I don’t see how Fifa will know,” he added, smiling like the Cheshire cat.
“And what about Hendrik Jan Hevel with a Dutch-sounding name?” asked another of the smart-aleck scammers.
“Easy lah. The Dutch, too, were in Malacca until recently. We will give him a Dutch datuk. Remember, we must tell Fifa only grandfather stories. Don't worry about their nenek moyang,” responded yet another smart aleck, with a confident smirk.
Massive damage
It is hard to believe these shameless scammers were unaware that common Portuguese surnames in Malaysia are Sta Maria, De Mello, Monteiro, De Souza, Nunis, Gomez and the like.
And Dutch names are like van Huizen, van Geyzel, Spijkerman, De Witt, Marbeck and the like. FAM may have got away with their grandfather stories if Spain had colonised us and not the Portuguese, Dutch and English in turn.
So here we are, shamed in front of the whole world and still teaching young Malaysians revisionist history, claiming, among other things, that 500 ships visited ancient Malacca in a month.
That our sailing ships were so large as to make Imperial China quake in her feet, or that we taught the Shaolin monks how to fly like Superman and stuff and nonsense of that kind.
The damage is massive and control, impossible now. When we are corrupt to the core, it matters little whether the players wear their jerseys inside out or the flag in the stadium is upside down.
Just blow the whistle and head to the dressing room. And don't ever take to the field again until we learn how to play football from Burkina Faso, the Land of Upright Men. - Mkini
MURALE PILLAI is a former GLC employee. He runs a logistics company.
The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of MMKtT.

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