The ongoing trainer/premiums comedy has inflicted quite a bit of international embarrassment upon Togo’s Worldcup team – mostly due to the incompetence of the Togolese football management. Yet, the eperviers gained some respect back in today’s game against South Korea. They fought hard, and showed a strong defense, and some good offense action. Had it not been for a bad foul by their captain, Jean-Paul Abalo on Ji Sung Park, for which Abalo saw the red card and was sent to the bench, this game might have very well ended differently. But for a team without coach and with one man down for half the game, they still gave South Korea a run for their money.

Summaries: ARD (de) | RFI (fr) | BBC (en) | reactions from Togo (BBC)

It makes me mad when the media discuss the premiums of the players for Togo and they point to the average per-capita income for Togo as a comparison for the 155,000 Euro premiums promised to the players. BULLSHIT. Most Togolese players live and work in Europe, and in the European context that is not such an outrageous premium. Some of the other teams pay a lot more than that. Also, the FIFA contributes at least 4.5 Million Euros to every team in the finals. And the Gnassingé clan, who runs Togo, is worth Billions of Dollars (Google cache).

So, the players see their boss Rock Gnassingbé get off his private jet with an entourage of FTF fonctionnaires, expecting to live large in Germany on FIFA money. Yet, the FTF bosses are surprised that the players are not very inclined to play for the honor of the nation and a bowl of fufu??

[UPDATE: here’s another Togo Football blog]

[UPDATE: Agbessi over at Au Village vents his frustration (fr) about the situation with the Togolese Football management. You tell ’em, my friend.]

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 13th, 2006 at 9:54 pm and is filed under worldcup2006. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.