Chad: a sad story

Day -807. WorldCup2018.

I'm surprised this story doesn't happen more often in world football. There are countries where people struggle to eat, where governments cannot provide for their citizens,  yet their national football team travels around their respective continents playing World Cup or continental championship qualifiers. Where does the money come from, I wonder. Does Fifa provide more than the World Bank, donor countries or UN agencies?

Chad has withdrawn from the African Cup of Nations qualifiers due to "financial constraints" brought about by the country being "badly affected by the global economic conditions." They were due to play in Tanzania on Monday, but informed their opponents that they would not make it. In this desperate time for the Chadian Football Association their message to the Tanzanian Association seems even more touching.

"We wish you all the best and we apologise for this situation which is basically unavoidable and out of our control."

It's sad, not only because the footballers have lost the opportunity to do what they love and young players may have lost something to aspire to. Chad have already been eliminated from World Cup 2018 qualifying. Now the African Cup of Nations 2017 is over for them and as a punishment the African Confederation (CAF) have suspended them from the 2019 edition. It is also a tragedy because for many, and maybe more in a poor country like this, football, and indeed any sport, is a distraction and something that can bring joy to the country's people.

And if ever Chad needed a sympathetic shoulder to cry on from it's football parents and guardians (CAF), when the country is so desperately poor and now even football had been taken away from them, this would be it. But what did CAF do? They stuck to their poxy, heartless rules and stuck the knife in even further: the Chadian Association has been fined US$20,000.