African Nations Cup Review: The Togo team incident

February 1st, 2010 | by: kiko | Comments Off

Unfortunately, Angola 2010 will be remembered for all the wrong reasons.

Sadly, the most memorable moment related to the tournament was the attack on the Togo team bus. That particular incident received more coverage than the actual football tournament and inevitably marred the competition.

The incident also proved to be a catalyst for further issues- the Togo national team cannot participate in the next two editions of the tournament, as consequence.

The most frustrating part of the incident is the fact that it could have easily been avoided.
Were the team instructions clear enough? If so, then why did the Togo FA risk travelling by coach?

Adding to these disasters, all the information available at that point was highly questionable.

The media worldwide, reported 3 deaths: The bus driver, a spokesman and the assistant manager. In reality, only the spokesman and the assistant manager died in the attack. The bus driver survived the attack, and was interviewed by an independent newspaper.
Oddly, most sources are still unaware of this and have not retracted their earlier reports.

Contradictory reports became commonplace and there was always something new to report every hour.

Overall, the incident portrayed a bad image of the country, affected the quality of the tournament and left too many questions unanswered.

A great and joyous football tournament was suddenly turned into a political fiasco.