George Weah dismisses Zimbabwe Warriors
By Goodwill Zunidza
LIBERIAN soccer legend George Weah has thrown the gauntlet at the Warriors, expressing assured confidence that his country’s senior national team will dispatch Zimbabwe and Mali in the forthcoming 2012 African Cup of Nations qualifiers and reach the finals set for Equatorial Guinea and Gabon.
The qualifiers start in September and the Warriors were drawn in Group A along with Liberia, Mali and also Cape Verde Islands. Only the top team from each of the 11 groups will get an automatic qualification along with the joint hosts, who have already secured two of the 16 slots in the finals.
The remaining three places will be taken up by the best three runners-up from the contesting groups. Weah, the legendary former World, European and African Footballer of the Year, starred for Liberia during a fruitful career that saw him turn for major teams such as the glamourous AC Milan in Italy, English champions Chelsea and French giants Olympique Marseille.
He inspired the hitherto underrated Lone Stars to a quarter-final place at the 1996 African Cup of Nations hosted here in South Africa. On Monday he took some minutes off his official schedule to look into the crystal ball for the Nations Cup qualifiers and said Liberia’s mission was to gun down all teams before them ahead of 2014 when they hope to reach the next Fifa World Cup finals that will be staged in Brazil.
“Well, I think we will earn the first slot in Group A to qualify for Gabon and Equatorial Guniea. We should not have problems playing against Mali and Zimbabwe, who are the other strongest teams in the group. Liberia should actually have been here at the 2010 World Cup but we lost by a single point to Nigeria in the qualifying rounds but I even told the players then not to lose hope because of that failure.’
“It was the nearest we ever got to qualifying for the World Cup and that means we should continue that path until the 2014 finals in Brazil and Liberia should be one of the five African finalists there. But of course it must start with the African Cup of Nations and my wish is to see our team reach both the 2012 and 2014 finals so that we have a competitive team going to Brazil,” Weah said.
Liberia have slipped down the Fifa rankings since “King George” hung up his boots and are standing at 150 on the Fifa World Rankings, the lowest position among the teams in Group A of the Nations Cup qualifiers. Mali are the highest-ranked side in the group on 54 while Zimbabwe come in at 110 and Cape Verde Islands, who secured a warm-up tie against Portugal just before the 2010 World Cup finals, are on 114.
Weah (44) still devotes a great proportion of his time to football but has since become a committed humanitarian and top politician in his country where he is the official opposition leader in the Liberian parliament. Weah contested the presidential election in 2005 winning the first round before losing the rerun to Liberia’s first woman president Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf.
He was not ducking any questions on Monday, including on non-football matters which he fielded with much enthusiasm. Arguably Africa’s most successful international export, Weah appeared at a media conference at the Sandton Convention Centre to introduce the amalgamation of the Fifa and France Football Magazine Footballer of the Year awards.
The accolades become one, starting next year with the 2010 presentation ceremony that will take place on January 10 in Zurich, Switzerland where Fifa are headquartered. Monday’s ceremony was jointly addressed by Fifa president Joseph Sepp Blatter and the president of the Amaury Group that owns France Football, Marie-Odile Amaury.
The two signed the agreement between their organisations to create the Fifa Ballon d’Or (Golden Ball) award for best footballer annually. Weah, the only African to win the World Player award, was invited to sit at the top table. The retired goal poacher also won the African Player of the Year award three times in 1989, 1994 and 1995 when he clinched the treble including the game’s biggest individual honour.
Weah is, however, the only Fifa Player of the Year never to participate with his national team at the World Cup. On a political question, Weah said he still hoped to become Liberia’s president in the next election.
“Well the work that my party Congress for Democratic Change (which he formed) has carried out makes it pretty obvious that I will be elected president in the next election. The people of Liberia know our programmes of action and the role we have played in bringing peace to the country and championing development.
“So I am pretty confident going into the next election,” said Weah. The Monrovia-born footballer said he was also burning to comment on the predicament of Nigeria’s Super Eagles despite no question having come his way in that regard.
“The Nigerian government must come to their senses and just follow the statutes of football. The rules don’t allow political interference in football administration and once they ignore this they put their national football team in a tight spot with Fifa, which is sad not only for the country but also for Africa as a whole.
“The Super Eagles are among the best ambassadors for African football and the Nigerian government must appreciate that fact and leave the Nigerian FA to sort out the problems in football maybe through a multi-stakeholder approach.”
President Goodluck Jonathan last week announced the suspension of Nigeria from all international competitions for two years in order for the country to put its house in order following the Super Eagles’ demoralising first round exit from the 2010 World Cup finals.
Nigeria have already been suspended by Fifa in the past after the central government withdrew the team from the 1996 African Cup of Nations in South Africa on personal security concerns. However, there were reports from Lagos on Monday that the latest decision has been rescinded.
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