The current system of allocation of World Cup places  does no favours to Africa. It took forty years for the continent to be given an automatic slot at the World Cup finals. Previously Africa had to compete in the World Group for one place. The two most successful confederations, Europe and South America, received the bulk of places from the beginning. They still do. CONCACAF did well out of it too even though their performance did not justify it.

Rewarding performance now assumes an equal playing field, but it never has been equal to start with and remains unequal. It was based on positive discrimination for the most powerful confederations and remains so. Europe and South America have done well out of it, creating a playing field that was and remains far from equal. Small wonder they share all the titles between them.

Both confederations have a monopoly of success built on an unfair system. They have had the opportunity to build experience of the World Cup and benefit from an allocation of places that all but excluded the rest of the world for four decades.

Historic Imbalance:

Africa had to boycott the World Cup in 1966 to gain an automatic place. Ironically the best ever performance by an Asian team until 2002 – North Korea’s march to the quarter-final in England – went unrewarded. Asia did not get a place automatically; Africa did, but African naivety was soon laid bare in 1974 when Zaire were beaten both on the pitch and off it too.

The then reigning African champions were humiliated, but the political situation in the Democratic Republic of Congo as it is now, contributed too. Corrupt government and jealousy of venal soldiers destroyed the potential that had ironically been developed with foresight by the utterly corrupt and bestial dictator Joseph Désiré Mobutu, who had spent a decade building sport and especially football in the country as a means of promoting his regime. The famous Rumble In The Jungle was an integral part of this plan.

But this is part of Africa’s problem. Governments exploit football and success on the pitch without developing the sport. The notable exceptions Egypt and Ghana still have not had the opportunity on the world stage. Egypt dominated the early years of the African Cup of Nations, but had no real opportunity to shine in the World Cups that corresponded with that time – 1958 and 1962. Brasil emerged and had an immediate effect.

The African team of the 1960s Charles Gyamfi’s Black Stars adopted the methods of the Brasilians, but despite appearing in the final of four consecutive African Cup of Nations tournaments they never had the opportunity to grace a World Cup – that came in 2006. Egypt rose again after qualification for that tournament to become Africa’s best team, but the unfairness of the allocation of places resulted in them missing Africa’s World Cup. Africa paid the price.

Lobbying and Coefficients:

“There’s a lot of lobbying that has to be done,” said Bwalya. “Our confederation has to be much stronger. We have the coefficients and then they multiply and subtract according to how well you have done. South America has a lot more World Champions than any other confederation. They have Uruguay, Argentina and Brasil who has won it a lot more, so in between them you have a lot more teams that have won the World Cup from that side and that’s why they keep the World Cup on that side – 4.5 places.”

Europe will overtake South America as the most successful confederation on Sunday and a new European champion – either the Netherlands or Spain – will join that list. The beaten finalists will join Hungary and Czechoslovakia as teams that got as close as possible without succeeding. Their performances could have made the allocation of slots worse, but Europe has an advantage. They should outperform all the others.

“Europe has thirteen so they have more than double the chance of getting another place and we could come in with minus one before you can start because they have thirteen teams, so the chances of one of their teams succeeding is much higher than an African team,” said Bwalya. “These are some of the concerns and challenges that African teams have to overcome for us to get more places. I think that there is good lobbying needed and that it would be good for Africa if the job was on the pitch, so let the boys do their job.”

Ghana did their job. But for the actions of the cheat the last semi-finalist should have been African. The best chance to make the system more equitable was clawed away by a cheat. FIFA’s refusal to deal with the consequences of that cheating meant that performance did not matter.  The consequences of Luis Suárez’ cheating have not been resolved and FIFA has no intention of dealing with it – we now have positive discrimination for cheats.