«I want the children of the world to see it. Let them see it right away, for free, at (Real) Madrid. Free. The children of Africa, who can watch football for free. But why won’t they be able to see it?
The press conference held a few days ago by the president of Real Madrid, Florentino Pérez, in which he pointed his finger, attitude and words at some journalists, media outlets and sports rivals; the same one in which, gentle and shabby, he also dedicated himself to distributing the question time (“Let’s see, that girl, who has the right to speak”), has already become a subject of study in Journalism faculties so that future professionals know how power and the media are sometimes related.
However, from the detail that has been made of everything he said, I have missed a little reflection on his reference to the childhood of the African continent. To the first lines of this text.
I move away in space and time.
In 2017, the then governor of Borno state and today the country’s vice president, Kashim Shettima, denounced that of the 126 NGOs that operated there, only eight provided “truly humanitarian services.” The rest, in his opinion, only used Borno’s name “to make money and get rich.” In addition to the misuse of funds, Shettima implicitly denounced that no one dared to ask what Nigerians needed and what their role could be in the midst of that situation. They were limited – and this is no small thing – to raising funds for a cause in which, probably, they had little interest, apart from the economic one,
And I return to Florentino from the other day.
In the midst of the dissuasive smoke, in tune with what the West usually does with the African continent “forever”, the president insisted that what the children of the world, including Africans, have to do is watch Madrid on TV. It doesn’t matter what they think, what they feel or what they need. In the Bernabéu’s opinion, now what they need is to see those in white play. And do it for free. “Why won’t they be able to see it?” «I say it. And that’s it,” he failed to say. But the latter is already an assumption of the person who signs this.
