It was only appropriate for all to congratulate the players from Spain, the Netherlands and Germany for their outstanding performance and dedication to the sport. Football, like many team sports, teaches each player in a team how to play cooperatively toward the same goal. There exists no hierarchy in this sport.
Moreover, players for each team are usually chosen solely because of their skills in the field, with no credit whatsoever given to any nonsensical criterion irrelevant to the game.The player’s social status, religion, caste, skin color, or eye color hold no more significance in qualifying for their team than the color of the ball itself.
Among each team that participated in the game, there were players with blonde hair, dreadlocks, bald heads, pale skin and blue-black skin; Moslems, Christians and Buddhists - all playing individually yet in concert with teammates, trying their utmost to score a goal against the opposing team.
They dribbled and passed the ball to the next team member in a swift and efficient manner, keeping in mind that they had but 90 minutes to play. This lesson becomes more poignant when one takes into account the venue in which this world event took place - South Africa, where just two decades ago, this tournament would have been an absolute impossibility.
South Africa - Country Non-grata a Generation Ago
Indeed, football's global governing body, FIFA, banned South Africa from international competition in 1963, and other sports entities of the world soon followed. Even the International Olympic Committee withdrew its invitation to South Africa to the 1964 Summer Games; and by the mid-1970s, tennis, cricket, field and track, cricket, and other sports joined in the boycott.
The reason for this ban was the inhumane and despicable regime imposed on the country by the ruling minority population, called "apartheid". The regime denied - with brutal efficiency - the most basic human rights to the indigenous and majority population of the country. They created what they referred to as Bantustans, where the indigenous peoples were herded into, and held in sub-human bondage. These areas were usually shanty towns and barren patches of land.
How appropriate that this World Cup event was held here. Through this team sport, the world may have learned once again that right here and now, there is only one team: Team Earth. And, to put it in the words of the United Nations' Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, hosting the World Cup by South Africa "is a triumph for humanity".
Sports for Peace
The dinner held for world dignitaries on the night of the opening ceremony was under the banner of "Sports for Peace". It is true that real articles for peace cannot be legislated; and many would call it futile to pin such hopes on politicians. Sporting events such as FIFA World Cup and the Olympics might hold a key to the world coming together as one.
Even then, peace can only be achieved when all human beings have truly perceived their common dependence on each other – just as the players in the various football teams did while in the field. Only then will an understanding transcending the barriers of nation, race, creed, gender and religion arise.
The FIFA World Cup event in South Africa, for the most part, has been a success; and what's more, it is a replicable event anywhere else in the world where greed, hatred, arrogance and stupidity still hold sway. If the trend of understanding among humanity continues at this rate, the world might yet witness FIFA World Cup held in Jerusalem, Israel within this decade.
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