Not only for Australians but for the whole world Football lovers the 2023 World Cup was close to perfect. Perfect, for many, would have been the Australia captain, Sam Kerr and not Spain’s Olga Carmona lifting the trophy. But in this country football has been associated with failure, blunder or worst of all being ignored. This tournament was something else entirely.
Spain is first-time world champions after a scintillating final performance against England in Sydney. They join Germany as the only countries to have won the men’s and women’s FIFA World Cups in history. The tournament will be remembered forever and is a huge step forward for the women’s game.
FIFA President Gianni Infantino has delivered two World Cup tournaments within nine months. He told Football Now that it’s been a successful year, and he is proud of the efforts of all those involved.
“This 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup has simply been the best ever. Great atmosphere and full stadiums. In the streets, everywhere, the people have been joyful and happy. Australia and New Zealand have been fantastic hosts. Across the world, 2 billion viewers. In the stadiums, 2 million spectators. Many, many records were broken. We had results that we couldn’t expect. Eight newcomers. A new world champion. I mean, what do you want more?”
Australia and New Zealand have done an incredible job welcoming all the fans. This tournament has boosted football’s popularity, without a doubt. Traditionally, the Oceania region are keen Rugby enthusiasts. However, almost 40% of the New Zealand population tuned in to watch the opening game. Moments like this make a world stand still and make a World Cup truly special.
Another stand-out moment was the quarter-finals, Australia against France. Goalless after 120 minutes of high-quality football. The deciding penalty shootout was the longest and most dramatic in history. Australia took the match with a 7 – 6 win.
Cortnee Vine took the winning penalty to send the Matildas to the semi-finals. It felt like a watershed moment for the sport down under. On social media, videos showed fans celebrating like never before in that part of the world.
Early in the competition, we said goodbye to game legends Brazil’s Marta Vieira da Silva and the USA’s Megan Rapinoe. Both will be remembered for their inspiring careers and contributions to women’s football on and off the pitch. Brazil failed to make it out of the group stages. While Rapinoe missed a crucial penalty in the US’ Round of 16 game with Sweden, resigning the former champions to an early shock exit.
We saw fantastic performances from the African teams. Many entered the tournament as the underdogs, but South Africa, Nigeria and Morocco gave a solid challenge to the heavyweights along the way. The progress made on the pitch was also coupled with moments of cultural significance, as Nouhaila Benzina became the first player ever to wear the hijab at a World Cup.
The Fifa president, Gianni Infantino, dubbed it the “best and greatest and biggest” Women’s World Cup in history. On this occasion, it was hard to argue with him. An average of more than 30,000 fans attended each match. Only tournaments in the US in 1999 and China in 2007 have averaged higher. Close to 2 million tickets were sold – a record, and almost 500,000 more than initial targets.
About 400,000 people attended the Matildas’ seven matches, each one at capacity. Millions more would have gone if they could. Instead the country turned to live sites and televisions. The semi-final between Australia and England outrated the biggest television programmes since the modern ratings system was established in 2001. Bigger than Australian rules grand finals, and rugby league State of Origin matches. Bigger than either Master Chef or My Kitchen Rules. Bigger than Wimbledon tennis, the 2003 men’s Rugby World Cup final. Bigger than anything else the Commonwealth could cook up, even Harry and Meghan’s wedding.
Australia 2023; The best ever FIFA Women’s World Cup!
Binyam and Zerihun named Best Player & Best Coach of the Year
Record 16 times Ethiopian premier league champions Kidus Giorgis play maker Binyam Belay won 2023 Ethiopian Premier league Player of the year accolade while Zerihun Shenegeta named Best Coach for second year in a row.
International Binyam Belay played the most important role in steering Kidus Giorgis to back-to-back championships titles. The midfield orchestrator as well as a dead pass specialist, Binyam turned out to be the most valuable player in his very first season with the club.
Though his goal tally is not something to mention, Binyam’s assists and tantalizing final passes are responsible for most of the goals the club scored this season. The 25 year-old play maker collected 210000 Birr prize money that go along with a glimmering trophy.
Zerihun Shenegeta voted Best of the year coach ahead of runner-up Baherdar Ketema’s Degearege Yigzaw and third place Ethiopia Insurance Coach Gebremedin Haile. Despite financial constraints that challenged the club, Zerihun led a disciplined and committed side to back-to-back second title four points clear of its contender. Zerihun tokk home a 200000 Birr Prize money plus personal trophy.
The Best Goalkeeper of the year award was handed to Ethiopia Insurance Abubakar Nura while Adama Ketema’s rising star Yosef Tarekegne named Best up-coming player of the year. Each player collected an individual trophy that goes along with a 150000 money prize.
The Best Referee of the season award goes to Binyam Workneh while Tegel Gezaw named Best assistant of the season. Each official took home 105000 Birr prize money.
Sudan and Niger remind why principles matter
By Jędrzej Czerep
Two major crises in the Sahel the Niger coup and Sudan civil war illustrate African and international ambiguity about principles. Why has the initially strong and values-driven stance by ECOWAS on Niger lose momentum, and why have not any of the peace plans for Sudan brought us closer to a resolution? Mainly because of a lack of seriousness about principles.
On the surface, principles seem to be back in fashion. That’s good. After the messy decade of facts-denialism by Trump, Bolsonaro, and Magufuli, the return of coups, and mainstreaming of post-truth discourse, there has been a need to regain some sense of honest direction.
Some of the newly refreshed basics worth adhering to include the idea that free and transparent states work better than autocracies and that it is good to allow people to define and pursue their own aspirations, and please, don’t spoil those few good examples that are around.
That’s why the overthrow of the Nigerien president, Mohamed Bazoum, was one coup too many. Around 2015, it seemed coup d’états were long gone in Sub-Saharan Africa, thanks to 15 years of African solidarity in rejecting power grabs. Routine suspension from the AU and other major bodies, sanctions, and the imposition of timelines for military units to return to their barracks worked. Soldiers also understood they were not welcome as rulers anymore. But this changed as the continental and regional bodies seemed to be losing faith in their own principles. The resurrected old-style coup plotters in Zimbabwe (2017), Sudan (2019/21), and Chad (2021) mostly succeeded in avoiding consequences. Simultaneously, in West Africa, new trends in coups developed. Mali’s Goita, Guinea’s Doumbouya, and Burkina’s Damiba followed by Traore were all young and charismatic. Change-hungry youth not only embraced strongmen interventions, but wanted them to stay. “Mali kura” (“new Mali” in Bambara) was the call of the day in Bamako. The Malian and Burkinabe colonels portrayed themselves as revolutionaries taking on France and ending what remained of the post-colonial dependency. They also embraced Russia as a force symbolising a break with the status quo and instrumental in lifting Africa’s weight on the global stage, no matter how misleading the notion of a Russian alternative was.
In Russia, proponents of “multipolarity” see the continent’s role as limited to supporting the Russian pole, not forming an equal, African, one, as Russia’s African supporters tout. The trap of betting on Russia became even more evident during the recent Russia-Africa Summit. After scrapping the Ukraine grain deal, Moscow promised to supply cereals to six countries in need. But while posturing as a humanitarian actor, it simultaneously bombed Ukrainian grain stocks. Furthermore, Burkina Faso and Zimbabwe seemed to have been added to the list of beneficiaries only after they declared open support of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine in front of cameras in Saint Petersburg. Not a request you would expect to hear from proponents of cleaner, principled partnerships.
Enter Gen. Tchiani, an old-guard officer who surrounded Niger’s presidential palace when Bazoum threatened to fire him. It seemed like a perfect opportunity for the AU, ECOWAS, and their foreign friends to put things back on the right track. Flex their muscles, see the coup-plotters backtrack, and democracy prevail in the end, that’s what Africans want. All the Afrobarometer surveys indicate vast majorities see democracy as the most desired system. Unfortunately, the same majorities are not happy with the state of the democracies they have and they measure what’s worth defending. Nigeriens remembered that Bazoum justified Kaka Deby’s power grab in Chad as bringing “stability”, just like French President Emanuel Macron did. The democratic qualities of leaders of the pro-intervention camp were also questionable. Nigerians primarily knew their Bola Tinubu more as an expert in behind-the-scenes machinations. Senegalese just saw Macky Sall arresting his main opponent Sonko. Ivory Coast’s Ouattara himself served a controversial third term after staging a “constitutional coup” in 2020. The result? Niger’s new junta quickly won popular support as it stroked the fashionable anti-French drum. Why did Tchiani’s dubious credentials, obvious personal ambitions, and pro-Russian masquerade outweigh the principled position of ECOWAS, which was right on the illegality of Niger’s coup and wanted to prove it was capable of enforcing African solutions to African problems? It is said a road sign doesn’t need to follow the direction it is pointing to, but for the sake of principles, it would be better if the pro-intervention camp genuinely represented the very values it said it was defending.
Sudan’s example is obviously far more dramatic. The devastating war there has entered its fifth month and shows no sign of ending. Not long ago, the atmosphere was very different. Since the 2018/19 anti-Bashir revolution, the country’s grassroots, non-violent resistance committees (RCs) embodied one of the world’s most inspiring, resilient, and principled pro-democracy movements—worth becoming a global icon. Indeed the Sudanese, especially following the October 2021 military/RSF takeover, felt part of the global “international of the oppressed”. To express that, they often linked their fight with that of the Myanmarans or the Ukrainians, similarly resisting the military might imposed on them. Except for no one really cared. Diplomatic interventions by regional states, the AU, IGAD, UN, or the U.S. were careful not to let the army or the paramilitary lose their grip on power and money. The result was that the momentum favouring a true transformation of Sudan into an inclusive, civic state became static. The moonwalking continued in the run-up to the eruption of the war on 15 April, and followed it.
As the devastating fight between Hemeti’s RSF (ex-Janjaweed), and Gen. Burhan’s Sudan Armed Forces backed by the Bashir-era Islamists has raged, masks dropped. Both of yesterday’s “statesmen” effectively abdicated from aspiring to any state functions. These were taken up spontaneously by the RCs trying to fill the gap in service delivery. Still, unsurprisingly, while both strongmen sought to grasp some legitimacy from referring to the 2019 revolution, both moved vigorously to harass the RCs, its last credible heir. And again, the flawed diplomatic approach to peacemaking persisted: the international community, be it the U.S., Saudis, AU, IGAD, or Sudan’s neighbours, never really took the Sudanese grassroots’ perspective seriously. Instead they kept on rewarding aggressors by placing them in the centre of the political process and alienating the most legitimate civic forces. The world seemed not to have learned from Ukraine’s post-2014 experience when Russia pushed for two Minsk “agreements” sealing the actual conquest of some of its neighbour’s lands in exchange for a promise of a respite a promise it never intended to fulfil. The more it got the more it wanted, and eventually went in for a full-blown invasion, just like Hemeti and Burhan turned on each other and against the Sudanese people for total control. In Ukraine it’s “no more Minsk” now, but “Minsk” is still in fashion where Sudan is concerned.
Half-measures might be OK if they are accompanied by an effort to make the best out of things, what Francis Deng called “idealism in realism”. For many, the Ethiopian government-TPLF Pretoria agreement seemed incomplete as it didn’t involve Eritrea. But in the end it did accelerate progress on the ground, and the prospects for a peaceful Tigray now look much better than back in November. But in the case of Sudan, no foreign supporter has tried to project a post-military state. For the diplomats, the process (talks, quotas, handshakes), not substance, represented a goal in itself. If in Niger problems arose from over-confidence in one’s ability to demand respect for principles, in Sudan it was the opposite war remained a sad memento of the impotence to follow their impulse. In both cases, we are reminded that principles only have value when treated seriously.
Jędrzej Czerep is head of the Middle East Africa programme at the Polish Institute of International Affairs (PISM), Sub-Saharan Africa analyst. He holds Ph.D. in Political Science and researches political cultures in Sub-Saharan Africa. Collaborated with think-tanks (Royal United Services Institute), international organisations (Council of Europe), media (Al-Jazeera, The Guardian). Lecturer at Collegium Civitas conductng self-designed courses on post-truth and the economy and politics of information. Works on a book on roles of new religious actors in African politics.
The 50 year anniversary of hip hop
From a small party in the Bronx’s, to a global phenomenon
On August 11, 1973, a young Cindy Campbell from the Bronx threw a back-to-school party at her apartment complex’s recreation center. She had her 18-year-old brother, Clive Campbell now known as DJ Kool Herc. With friends and family, Clive proceeded to play music by the likes of James Brown, Aretha Franklin, and The Meters. a specific technique of use the turntables is known as birthed what we know as hip hop, Clive used the method of known as the merry-go-round of playing two copies of the same record, where one moves back and forth, from one record to the next, looping the percussion portions of each track to keep the beat alive. This led to counties dancing and partying which brought DJ’s as the main stars of the New York clubs.
Hip hop inspirations comes from the genres of funk, blues, jazz, rhythm and blues and even spoken word. This use of genres that started in the 70’s still continues to be used today. Hip hop is not only a music genre but a culture that is beyond music. The culture of hip hop created a space for young black and Latino people be free under the oppression of the America of the 70’s and 80’s. The now self-expression can be shown in different ways such as Emceeing, or rapping, is the art of speaking, singing, or reciting poetry while a beat is being played, Deejaying, also known as turntablism, is the art of controlling two turntables or a DJ-friendly sound program to control the music and keep it continuing or to produce new sounds, B-boying, also known as break dancing, is the practice of expressing oneself via dance or movement. Graffiti is an artistic expression through spray-painting, writing on walls or other surfaces. These forms of expressions now are what are made up of hip hop culture today.
Back in the 80’s the future of hip hop was seen as short and bleak, “just a phase”, but now 50 years later it has become the voice of generations each unique and of its own.by celebrating the 50 year anniversary we acknowledge the past and the history of a start of a movement and by acknowledging the past we can learn and love for the future.
