With the next World Cup to be held in South Africa, giving Africa one extra qualifier, and probably the best chance for an African side to win the World Cup, what chance has an African side got of winning the ultimate prize? Pele famously said he believed that an African nation would win the World Cup by 2002. Obviously, he has had to revise that theory with every four years that pass, but when South Africa kick-off the 2010 tournament, which African teams will be in the running?

The World Cup in Germany was notable for many things, including the absence of the recognised powers in African football, that being Cameroon, Nigeria, and to a lesser extent, South Africa. Now, on the basis of their performances in Germany, would anyone argue that Togo or Angola are better teams than Nigeria or Cameroon? Egypt, current African Nations champions, did not qualify either, and it isn’t comparable to the non-qualification of Greece, who were shock winners in Portugal, and have never been viewed as a power in European football, whereas Egypt have long been one of the top teams in Africa.

Ghana and the Ivory Coast are emerging nations on the World stage, both in terms of qualification for their first World Cup, and having players who are recognised as being world class. Didier Drogba, Michael Essien and Kolo Toure are to this generation of African youngsters what Roger Milla, Jay-Jay Okocha, Kanu and Rigobert Song, were to the last one, albeit in part due to Chelsea’s policy of over-inflating the transfer market, yet it remains to be seen whether they can keep this momentum up over the next four years.

Although Senegal won many fans with their gallant displays in Japan in 2002, they never even looked like qualifying this time round, and many of the players who sought greener pastures after that World Cup struggled away from the familiarity of the French leagues. El-Hadji Diouf is the most obvious name that springs to mind, and only time will tell whether lesser players such as Didier Zokora, Abdoulaye Meite and, possibly in the future, Freddy Adu, come to terms with the rigours of the Premiership.

Angola played with spirit, but never looked like progressing from a group that they could well have done, but for the inability to break down a woeful Iranian team, and Togo looked overawed at the prospect of playing on the world stage, capitulating in the final group game to hand France their passage through, and very nearly belittled the entire World Cup with their threats to not play over bonus payments disputes.

That kind of thing is almost a pre-requisite at African Nations tournaments, where players who are from ridiculously impoverished nations begin rubbing up against those who earn the big money in the European leagues, and start to believe in their own hype. The very fact that Togo could even suggest boycotting one of the biggest moments in its national team’s history proves that this team was not good enough to be at the World Cup. Possibly they may have had enough skill

and/or luck during the qualifiers to reach the final stages, but could you imagine say, San Marino or Azerbaijan threatening to not play a match because their bonus payments weren’t the national average earning multiplied tens of thousands of times?

You only have to look at the African Cup of Nations to see what kind of state African football is in. Underhand tactics are the norm, with reports of sub-standard accommodation, and training facilities that are, at best, less than basic being provided by the tournament hosts.

When Mick Wadsworth managed DR Congo in the 2004 tournament, he resigned before his side had even completed their group games, citing pressure and threats from unnamed figures in the countries government, and the seemingly insurmountable odds they were up against thanks to their Tunisian hosts (who, incidentally, went on to win the competition, as did Egypt as hosts two years later – what price Ghana in 2008?). When the Congolese team arrived at their hotel, they were told that someone from the tournament organising committee had cancelled their reservation, so they had to find an alternative base for the team. The only hotel that they could find was a four-hour round trip from their training ground. Undeterred, they set off for their first training session, only to find that the training ground was locked. After a period of waiting around, the ground was finally opened, but they found they were without goals or balls. Did, at any point, FIFA step in? The very idea that Sepp Blatter would undermine his position as head of football’s governing by taking to task the very people whose corruption keeps him in power is laughable.

It is an open secret that African football is rife with corruption, and it is this corruption that is keeping the infrastructure of the African game from developing. With only a fraction under four years until South Africa host what they say will be a World Cup for all of Africa, the South African organising committee, government and local authorities in Cape Town are still embroiled in what is becoming an increasingly bitter argument over not only where the new stadium will be built, but if it will be built at all, and who will be eligible for any profits made from its construction.

With one of the country’s biggest clubs, Kaizer Chiefs, currently serving a three year continental ban, and the buying and selling of team franchises surreptitiously replacing promotion and relegation in some instances, it is difficult to see how far the host nation will go, even on the back of what will surely be fervent home support. When you consider some of the players that this league has produced in the past: Bruce Grobbelaar, Lucas Radebe, Peter Ndlovu and Benni McCarthy to name but a few, it would be a shame if South Africa, or at least one of the other African nations, didn’t go further than any other side before them has, or maybe even go the whole way and win the tournament. Although, if that did happen, I would imagine I’ll be sitting here in four years time questioning whether world football has taken a step back now that an average African team has won the World Cup.