That great Irish-American actor, Patrick McGoohan, in the movie Ice Station Zebra memorably intoned about the ubiquity of German talent in the three great Cold War enemies: Russian satellites made by their German scientists, US film made by their German scientists, and British cameras made by their German scientists.
Likewise, Africans may take a comparable proprietorial pride in this summer’s World Cup, with some “European” teams demographically resembling ones from Africa. Naturally, none of the journalists covering the World Cup would ever stoop so low as to report on such an aspect: that would surely be racist. But being race-blind is itself a form of racism when it prevents observers from commenting on the patently bleeding obvious. The population of England is close to sixty million people. Around 4.2% of those are “black”, an imprecise metonym for “of African origin”. Very few people in the world are actually black, any more than people on the other end of the epidermal spectrum are actually “white”, a term that really applies only to frostbitten dead Caucasians.
Despite the smallness of the demographic in England that is “black”, that is, of largely African origin (OLAO), it is disproportionately present in the English soccer squad. Seven of the nine defenders, two of the five midfielders, and seven of the nine forwards can claim OLAO ancestry. Indeed, England’s opening match in the USA ended with eight of the ten outfield players being OLAO. The two “white” players were hardly a celebration of Anglo-Saxonry: Declan Rice and Harry Kane are both ethnically Irish, as indeed is the third most-talented of the few “white” players, Anthony Gordon. Deduct all players of African or Irish origins from the best of the England squad, and what remains of quality are three haplessly pallid goalkeepers.
