IT seems a very long time ago now that a West African character by the name of Kunta Kinte made his unexpected entry into our schoolyard lives as the star of Alex Haley’s epic TV drama Roots.
Kunta Kinte was the central character in Haley’s chronology of his life as a slave, snatched from the bush at the age of 17 and shipped across the Atlantic where he was sold into the possession of a Virginia plantation owner.
It was a fascinating piece of television, as striking as it was educational at a time when most of us growing up in 1970s Ireland barely knew what a black man or woman looked like in reality.
Black babies were something we donated money to at Mass on a Sunday, and Africa was the place where Irish missionaries saved the locals from witch doctors by spreading the Catholic faith.
We knew nothing of slavery in our primary school days. There was no Internet and nothing to tell us the story of Kunta Kinte and his fellow slaves until Haley’s show hit our small screens.
It made quite an impact, I can tell you. All of a sudden we were aware of the hardship suffered by those who were “stolen from Africa, brought to America” as the Bob Marley lyric goes.
I can remember discussing Roots in the school yard, discussing the cruelty and the pain and the suffering of those who backboned what is now African American culture.
Today Ireland and the world are very different places. We have a multi-ethnic community in Ireland these days and we are the better for it, even if racism, the modern day cancer that is a by-product of slavery, can raise its ugly head from time to time.
Slavery still exists of course. Child slavery is still rampant in parts of the world, women from Eastern Europe are regularly sold as sex slaves to the so called free world . . . and a footballer who earns over $200,000 a week is a slave.
Yes folks, over 30 years after Alex Haley’s incredible story filled our television screens, a new slavery scourge is hitting the headlines -– according to the most powerful man in world football.
Just last week the president of FIFA, Sepp Blatter, announced to a stunned footballing community that Cristiano Ronaldo is a slave to Manchester United.
According to the idiotic Blatter theory, Ronaldo is a slave because the champions of England won’t release him from his long term and lucrative contract and sell him to Real Madrid.
Naturally it didn’t take the opportunistic Ronaldo long to jump on the bandwagon and publicly agree with Blatter’s stupid claim that he is a modern day slave, a statement made no doubt to boost his chances of picking up a $300,000 a week contract from the Spanish giants.
Let’s get this straight — Cristiano Ronaldo is no slave. Nobody from Man-chester United forced him to sign the contract that earns him millions of euros each and every year.
Nobody from Manchester United shackles him in chains or locks him in his multi-million pound home every night.
Nobody, to the best of my knowledge, has ever denied Cristiano Ronaldo his basic human rights, in Manchester or anywhere else for that matter.
Cristiano Ronaldo is a big boy playing a big boy’s game. He is contracted to the biggest club in Europe, yet he keeps telling anyone who will listen that his dream is to play for Real Madrid.
Frankly it has all become rather monotonous and part of me feels, as I have said on these pages before, that Alex Ferguson should cash in on the whinge bag and use the money to buy someone who wants to play for him.
The fact that United are now in the market for Tottenham’s Dimitar Berbatov suggests to me that Fergie has already reached that conclusion and is forward planning for life without Ronaldo even if Arshavin would be a more imaginative replacement.
Meantime, Ferguson and football could have done without the latest outburst from the man who is supposedly the most powerful figure in the game.
This is not the first time that Sepp Blatter has spouted absolute rubbish, but it should be the last.
To leave Blatter in charge of football is an insult to all victims of slavery, past and present.
Roots was a mixture of fact and fiction when it was released in the 1970s but at least it was based on fact, horrible and all as those facts were.
Blatter’s bleatings have no foundation in any fact. For that he should pay a heavy price.
Timekeeping Is Essential!
IMAGINE the hullabaloo if UEFA delayed the kick-off for the recent European Championship final between Spain and Germany in Vienna because some of the seats in the ground were empty?
Imagine the fuss if the Super Bowl was delayed for a quarter of an hour because some of the fans were still in the Budweiser tent drinking their brains out?
Imagine the embarrassment if one of the world’s greatest sporting organizations had to delay a showcase event because most of its patrons were down the pub guzzling pints?
Well, that’s exactly the scenario awaiting Sunday’s Leinster football final at Croke Park when the mighty Dublin take on the minnows of Wexford in what is always one of the great occasions of the GAA calendar.
Regular readers will know that the issue of Dublin fans turning up late for big games at headquarters has long been a big bear for this column but this week the issue stooped to a new low.
Various newspaper articles early in the week quoted Croke Park’s stadium director Peter McKenna on the subject of late starts, both to the recent game against Westmeath and the potential for a delay this coming Sunday.
Frankly the quotes I read from the public face of one of the world’s proudest sporting bodies were a joke.
“We are working to have the throw-in on time,” stated McKenna. “We will only delay the game if there are issues at the turnstiles, not because people aren’t in the ground. If we feel the situation outside the ground is containable we will go ahead.”
So there you have it. The GAA hope to start the game on time.
They are working to have the throw-in on time and all they need now is for the fans to leave their pints behind and do their best to make the 4 p.m. start.
What a load of nonsense. The GAA should start Sunday’s game at the allotted time, and if the so called fans are still down in the pub that’s their tough you know what.
Another delay will just make a mockery of the GAA.
Heroes Of the Week
THE Tipperary hurler John O’Brien worried for his life when he was involved in a serious car crash just over two years ago, but on Sunday he proved the value of hard work and dedication when he scored the crucial goal and earned the man of the match award as Tipp easily defeated Clare in the Munster hurling final. O’Brien’s bravery as he fought to recover lost ground as an inter-county star was justly rewarded in the Gaelic Grounds last weekend.
Idiots Of the Week
A SECTION of Limerick hurling fans booed manager Richie Bennis and his players at the end of Saturday night’s shock All-Ireland qualifier defeat to Offaly. While they were naturally aggrieved at their team’s surprise loss against one of Leinster hurling’s whipping boys, you have to ask if the Limerick fans have forgotten all too easily the joy Bennis and his team gave them a year ago on their way to the All-Ireland final?
Sideline Views
SOCCER: Just when you thought the eircom League couldn’t get any more bizarre with one club after another declaring financial difficulties comes the news that St. Patrick’s Athletic have sacked a player for being overweight! Midfielder Michael Keane, who reportedly earns over $5,000 a week, was told to lose weight earlier in the year, but the order has apparently fallen on deaf ears and Keane’s employment has been terminated by the league leaders. Despite his weight gain Keane isn’t taking this lying down -– he’s going to appeal. I’d love to be a fly on the wall at that appeal!
GOLF: Graeme McDowell refused to play ball when the European Tour asked him to get measured up for Ryder Cup gear last week, a full two months before the Valhalla event. McDowell is now ready to change his mind after winning the Scottish Open on Sunday and moving up to sixth place in the Ryder rankings. He’s virtually guaranteed a place on Nick Faldo’s team at the moment, the only Irishman in serious contention right now which is a bit of a worry, although Padraig Harrington should make it as a wild card.
HURLING: Pity the poor Donegal hurlers who were under the impression that they had beaten Monaghan by 1-16 to 0-18 points in the Nicky Rackard Cup last Saturday and were told as much by referee Brendan Sweeney who then changed his mind, after consulting his linesmen and umpires, and awarded the game to Monaghan on a 0-19 to 1-15 scoreline. Little wonder that manager Eamonn Campbell has threatened to quit in protest.
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