Let's Hope Mozambique Can Make the Commonwealth Proud

It's almost World Cup time. All over South Africa people are polishing sports stadiums, giving the animals in the safari parks a final manicure and trying to persuade the murderers and rapists to take the fortnight off. Australia is there of course; with the possible exception of Afghanistan's pro-am buzkashi tournament there isn't a single sporting competition in the world we can stay away from. We even compete in elephant polo for god's sake.

What I find amazing is how soccer (sorry, football) which is only of passing interest to most Australians in the general run of things suddenly becomes desperately important with every world cup. We watch, we agonise, we comment knowledgeably on the injuries to our star players and hope that this time it will be our year. Which is crazy because until recently Australia's football league was little more than an excuse for Serbian and Croatian immigrants to beat each other up. Things have changed in the last few years and we now actually have an Australian competition which has almost as much credibility as our basketball league. Still, football not exactly the top pick of sports played in this land. Nevertheless we will be devastated if our team (specially retrieved from the overseas clubs they play for) doesn't astonish the world. Personally I hope we can beat the United States, another great football nation.

You may find this odd but I think the US might be a nation to watch out for in the football stakes. Immigration from Central America has reached a point where California could probably field its own team for the world cup. Football will only get bigger in America mark my words.

We have an embarrassment of riches in the sporting field at the moment. Later this year the Commonwealth Games will be held in India. For those who don't know the Commonwealth Games is a sporting competition held between those nations that used to be part of the British Empire plus Mozambique and Rwanda for reasons nobody can really explain. Seventy two teams will compete for the glory of taking home medals that will seem impressive until the athletes in question come fifth at the Olympic Games two years later.

Why are Rwanda and Mozambique in the Commonwealth? Of course it is now known as the Commonwealth of Nations rather than the British Commonwealth for reasons that are obscure but probably have something to do with political correctness. Apparently its OK to have an association based on places that Britain used to rule as long as nobody mentions the fact. But Britain never ruled Rwanda or Mozambique. Rwanda was ruled (rather unpleasantly) by the Belgians and Mozambique was ruled (or rather mismanaged) by the Portuguese. I can't help thinking that at some point the rulers of those nations saw most of their neighbours jetting off to junkets in countries far more appealing than their own and decided to get a little of that action.

Rwanda is just recovering from a period of hideous genocide and according to recent media reports is preparing enthusiastically for the next one while Mozambique is a positive success story with a democratic government and economic growth despite the fact that the main crop is still landmines left over from their own civil war. With foundations like these it is easy to see that they will have a long and successful membership of the Commonwealth. At the present moment Algeria, Sudan, Madagascar and Yemen have all applied for membership of the Commonwealth. I have nothing against any of these nations (except maybe Sudan) but come on. If we keep letting people in at this rate the Commonwealth is going to wind up as bad as the UN. Sudan and Yemen at least can claim to have been oppressed by the British at some point in their past but Algeria and Madagascar were French. Shouldn't the French have their own Commonwealth of Nations Who Kicked the French Out in a Bloody Civil War? There is something called the Francophonie (glorious name by the way) which is a collection of nations that speak French. Naturally Greece and Romania are members and Mozambique has observer status. What, precisely are they observing? Hey look there's a bunch of people speaking French, and occasionally Romanian or Greek.

Mozambique just loves the international bodies. As well as being a member of the Commonwealth and observers of the Francophonie they actually started their own group as well, the Community of Portuguese Language Countries which is a collection of nations linked to Portugal and the Portuguese language. It has eight members all of whom speak Portuguese but watch this space because Romania is trying to angle in here as well, its bid for observer status will be discussed at the next meeting in 2012. Romania needs to start its own group; Association of Nations Who Speak Their Own Language but Love Foreign Travel comes to mind as an appropriate title.

No doubt in the fullness of time the Francophonie and the CPLC will have their own games (if they don't already) where athletes will strive to compete for medals that even Commonwealth Games title holders will look down upon. When that day happens I'm prepared to bet that Australia will somehow wangle an invite to send a team.