I have a confession; I almost regularly watch the English Premier League. A second confession; my team took the cup after three decades; ours was one, long wait, wasn’t it! Case closed!
Recently, I was having a phone chat with a friend from across the Atlantic who happened to be the most fanatic football fan while he was still here. More than once he ended up with bruises and bleeding noses. Somehow whenever fights between fans occur, his chin and nose seemed to be getting more of the action. But who cared! It’s football! He tells me he has stopped watching EPL for good;
“I’m done with it!”
“But why?” I was expecting some answer like “I’ve switched to baseball.” No, that wasn’t what he said.
“Don’t you see what they are doing to us? I tell you that are doing it deliberately.”
“What do you mean?”
“This is neocolonialism, man!” (He really put in the term ‘man.’ They all do, once they’ve unpacked and before they get their bite of some real McDonald burger. Hey guys, just curious, is the burger that does this to you?”) “They are trying to enslave
us!” Enslave what!
‘Oh no; not again!’ That’s what I’d have said had it been a few years earlier. These days the world being as weird as it is, and six of her seven billion inhabitants being weirder, I have stopped playing the ‘surprise’ card. Anything and everything can happen! We talked about EPL and other things sometime. (My friend has stopped watching EPL but he still enjoys taking about it!)
After that phone conversation I tried to dig deeper into what he said. Maybe that was not paranoia or anything like that on his part. Maybe, just maybe, he might have a point or two. (I can’t stop smiling thinking about the next rallying slogan, “Down with EPL colonialism!” God, save us from Jose Mourinho’s verbal jab! The guy is really good at it. )
Forget the Klop boys seem to be in reverse gear; forget Mourinho still clings you his antique ways of blowing up over everything which these days puts you off; forget the guys on Addis minibuses arguing “Arteta must go!” when they should have worried where their next meal would come from.
What really nags you is that we seem to be squandered so much of our precious hours
over it! Why are we so emotional over something happening many seas and lands away! Yes, there were even times when punches flew and the knives were drawn out! Sadly, lives have even been lost! When the fans of The Gunners and The Reds go back home whistling after a match calling it a day, our ‘fans’ chased each other all over the streets. It’s comforting to realize we have somehow slid far from such extremes. Still the EPL craze is still holding us by the throat.
Just look at the mount of air time the EPL gets on the sports programs. Of course, we miss the point by umpteen miles and some that these media organizations are commercial enterprises.
They are largely in it for the money. And talking about the EPL is the magnet that draws sponsors in their dozens. As a business enterprise no one in their right mind would kick such cash cows over the fence. They are the ones to decide on which side their bread is buttered. And yes, EPL is the side on which their bread is buttered.
However, what gives me the ticks is the tone of finality you hear from these mostly young sport, sorry, ‘football’ journalists. Their matter-of-fact tone when they tell Lampard he should have played a more defensive game; when the tell the reds they have to show the door to Drogba fellow, and when they tell you the problem with The Gunners lies with the unsolved issue if the Ozil guy! I tell you the EPL is going nowhere until the bosses start listening to what our sports journalists are telling them!
The other week almost all of them were talking about practically nothing but the upcoming game between Liverpool and Man United; No problem with that! But when they try to make it sound like it was the hottest issue on the planet; like it was something all the seven billion of us should watch since it was once in lifetime affair; like it was a game that would make or break humanity, you give up!
Well, it might not be an out and out neocolonialism; but I am sure it neo-something. I’m going to tell you when I get my hands on it!
The million dollar riddle about that goalless draw last Sunday… Oh no! OH NO! See, I told you there must be a neo-something that makes us talk of about nothing but EPL! Just as an afterthought… Are these guys really kicking us around without us feeling the pain yet! I’ll be demanding some ‘EPL Neo-colonialism’ crash course from my Diaspora friend! I need it!
The Ethiopian Herald January 24/2021