Losses and Germany 2006

Seeing a copy of ‘Complete Sports’ Saturday got me wondering – What is the monetary cost of our not going to the world cup for sports journalists, publishers, radio stations, TV stations, corporate sponsors, etc. We are surprisingly very coherent, patriotic and united as a nation once soccer is involved. For that reason I guess in the build up towards any competition we just can’t seem to get enough of the sport (our enthusiasm in 1994 helped launch Larry Izamuche/Echijele (spelling!!!)) Any business man worthy of the name cannot but capitalize on our enthusiasm. By now we would be suffering information overload, the sports papers would be going to press 3 times a day at least, radio and TV stations would be hosting all sorts of programs, every sports person worth their onions would be featured at least once a day on the different media spewing forth on why they think a particular player should make camp, why another shouldn’t, why we need a foreign coach, an indigenous coach, etc. Of course all our matches would have been played again and again even before the competition starts, with results hotly debated in the beer palour, pepper soup joint, during lunch break, in the bus, during church service, on the way to jumat, on the phone via email, everywhere! Companies would be having all kinds of promos, everyone will be guarding jealously their Coke/Fanta/Sprite bottle caps (Coca-Cola does have a promo on), Milo/Bournvita foil seals, etc.

The spouses will also miss out, how wives and girlfriends love football season. Never has it been so easy to monitor a guy, no need to waste your precious credit trying to track him down. One look at the World Cup time-table and you can confidently tell anyone where exactly he will be – home, sports bar, best mates place, or office canteen. Of course the generator would be in perfect working order and there will be a regular supply of diesel/petrol so you don’t need to miss any of your favorite programs on DSTV, (to ensure nothing disturbs his viewing pleasure he has upgraded to the dual-view decoder!)