Women’s Handball World Cup – why is Africa so poor in other sporting events?

Africa’s very poor world level performance in its non-traditional sporting events got another confirmation in the just ended Women’s Handball World Cup that took place in Denmark.

Of the three countries that represented Africa, only Angola barely survived the group games. Tunisia and Congo DR came bottom of their respective groups by losing all their games by huge margins. Angola was drawn in a relatively easy Group B and won two games against Cuba and China (both weak oppositions). Angola lost her games against Sweden, Poland and eventual finalists, Netherlands. But the two victories were enough to send her into the knockout stage. This set them against group A winners, Montenegro, which was too hard a nut for them crack. They lost by 28 goals to 38 to end the African dream. The Handball World Cup has a practice of playing for the positions outside the medal zone. Congo lost to Kazakhstan and Cuba to place dead last in the 24 nation tournament.

Why is Africa so poor at Handball? This question should be expanded to wonder why Africa is so poor at all other games in the world apart from football, long distance running and Boxing. There is an exception, though. South Africa has world class teams in Rugby and Cricket. But, you see, South Africa is not like the rest of Africa in many respects.

The ready answer you will get to my question is that African countries are too poor to spread their resources on a wide variety of games especially the ones that require costly outlays. We are good at football and distance running because they require little financial input. As for distance running, East Africa seems to have a certain natural talent that does not have much to do with how much investment is made into the sport.

But this does not tell the whole story. There are many sporting events in the world that don’t require much financial input. One of them is handball. Indeed, it is a cheaper game to play than football. Yet we are not good at it. We do not have the tradition of playing such games and, of late, Africa has over-concentrated her resources on football. This has resulted in tremendous strides in the game but we are still desperately searching for a semi-final place in a World Cup – a feat already achieved by our nearest competitors, Asia, when South Korea reached the semis of the 2002 World Cup it hosted. But we are not doing well in other variants of football – beach soccer, and indoor floor soccer (Futsal) both of which have FIFA organised World Championships.

There is a certain belief, which may be incorrect, that English speaking African countries are not traditionally good at games played with the hands. This may be a relic of our colonial upbringing. That is why Ghana is not good at Handball, Basketball, and Volleyball. Instead of Handball and Basketball, the British brought Netball to our girls and football to the boys. Then they also brought Land Hockey. Netball has disappeared long ago giving way to basketball for our girls. Yet they are not doing well in that game. And Ghana’s prowess in Land Hockey is nothing to write home about.

Today, girls are playing football which means there are even fewer girls for basketball, volleyball and handball. Ghana has never presented a handball team for the World Cup. The powerhouses in handball on the continent are all non-English speaking countries: Angola (which is also a force in basketball), and French and Arab speaking countries.

If you google Handball in Ghana, you are more likely to hit Suarez’s handball goal against Ghana in the South African World Cup than the game of Handball in Ghana. It is almost non-existent. There seems to be a moribund handball league in the Greater Accra Region. There is not much to read on handball in Ghana.

What is to be done? We simply have to put in more efforts in promoting other games from the primary school level. Not everybody can become good at football. But our youth can become world beaters in other games too, bringing glory to the country too. Nobody expects Ghana to do well in ice-hockey, winter games, motocross or Formula 1 racing. But there is no reason why we should not do better in Handball, Volleyball, Basketball, Weightlifting, Lawn and Table Tennis, and a host of other games that are played in Ghana but not really taken seriously.

The final game of the Handball World Championships became an anti-climax as Norway dominated the game against a hapless Netherlands side that was overjoyed at being in its first ever World Cup final. It is Norway’s third world cup victory. It is significant that Norway, a country of only 5 million, whose traditional sporting strength is in winter sports where they are among the best in the world, should still be so good a Handball. Norway now currently holds all the major women’s titles in Handball: World, Olympics, and European.

There is a certain link between gender equality in a country and the performance of the country’s women in sporting events. Where women are free, they perform better in sports too. That is why the women in the Scandinavian countries, USA, Canada and some other countries where women have great independence are good in sports. And that is why African women are so poor at all sporting events and Arab women are even poorer.

The next big Handball tournament will be the Olympic Games next year in Brazil. Angola is among those countries already qualified for the games. Tunisia will play a qualifier in a group with Holland, France and Japan. With only the top two qualifying from each group, it is not likely Tunisia will make it from that group.

As for Ghana, we have absolutely nothing to say here.

Kofi Amenyo (kofi.amenyo@yahoo.com)