By Prince Justice Faloye

I instinctively wished Messi could use the 2022 World Cup as the crowning glory of his stellar career and contribution to world football. However I was woke to the world politics of football, and especially the peculiarity of the two finalists, Argentina and France.

On one hand, we see the display of the exploitation African human and national resources, with France having 15 Black players in its squad, earning the title of Francophone Africa dream team. On the other, we have a mainly White team from South America, where Blacks have been hereos in Brazilian, Colombia and other South American teams. 

The lack of Blacks in the Argentine team is a sad reminder of the extermination of the Black population after slavery, which Brazil and USA whites had hoped but only Argentina was successful. Blacks were systematically erased through various means from extra judicial killings to making them flee across the border from repressive racist governments. Argentina with a majority Italian population with West African Moor/Afroasiatic invasions and conquest encoded in their genetic history, have a more racist perspective than Spanish and French, their Romance cousins.

The French became the most successful Romance nation being the second largest African enslaver, second only to the British, and have continued to sustain their ascendancy with colonization and neocolonization, one of which was using Francophone African talent for a successful national team.

France was to win it’s first ever World Cup when they choose a national team with Black players like Thierry Henry, Patrick Viera, Marcel Desailly, Bernard Lama etc. From thereon, France sought out strong talented Africans and once again won in 2018. Once again, they are on the verge of winning the third World Cup with Black players.

This doesn’t go down well with some Africans that claim that France and other Western nations use of Africans is deprieving African nations of talent required to compete on the global stage. Also, some White nations are jealous of French colonial bank of talents, and when their mild protests were ignored for being racist, many European nations went to scout for sportsmen in exchange of nationality papers. However, none has the control of the pool of Black talent like the French colonizers, except maybe Britain whose single neocolony of Nigeria has a population greater than the combined populations of the 18 Francophone African neocolonies. 

While the Romance tribes of French, Portuguese, Italian and Spanish adopted the Arab methodology that it was about Black culture being inferior and not their skin, the British are open about the skin color and fear of Black genetic supremacy that could bring White annihilation. So while the French government could justify a majority Black national team, the British can’t without provoking resistance. Nevertheless, England’s star player at the 2022 World Cup was Bukayo Saka, a Nigerian. If they could get it past their supporters, they would probably load their team with Nigerians to defeat the French.

Unable to counter French flaunting of Black power, Messi is the Great White Hope. The Emilokan of White World Cup championship. That’s where the dilemma occurs – do I support the African team or the Tarzan sent to curtail them. If Argentina can win, maybe the Europeans will leave us alone in Africa, who cares if they gloat that they are equal in power and skills, or do we?