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The fuss over the timing of Ghana 2008 helped put the tournament centre-stage around the world – and those watching can only have been impressed, writes Alan Sharif Duncan

There can be no turning back now for African football. Largely overlooked a decade ago as little more than the continental confederation’s nativity play, the Africa Cup of Nations is being transformed into something of a global sporting phenomenon. While there will be those who will mourn its relative loss of innocence to a world of sponsors, TV rights and unprecedented western media scrutiny, Ghana 2008 was, in terms of the quality of football alone, a timely coming of age – two years before South Africa hosts the World Cup.

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The internet’s infinite size has led to a huge rise in the number of people writing about football, but as the game occupies more and more of cyberspace the clubs and FAs are frantically trying to control the message and quash negative headlines. Ian Plenderleith examines how the thought police are getting on

Complete control
In January, the German press said Bayern Munich had put together a list of 20 “relevant” media outlets, and that they were planning to grant information and interview access only to those they thought fit to cover the club. Bayern were presumably thinking that if they could keep a close eye on who was reporting on the team, they could better spin the stories and curb any criticism. It’s unlikely that there were many independent webzines on the list.

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Zaire’s 1974 World Cup experience can be seen as comic but, as Jonathan Barker explains, reaching those finals was actually a high point in a country’s tragic history

If he were alive today, perhaps a chunk of former Zairean dictator Mobutu Sese Seko’s dubiously acquired fortune would be invested in a Premier League club. Instead his claim to football infamy is the role his government played in the dramatic rise and fall of his country’s football team. The Leopards were African champions in 1968 and 1974, but have gone down in history as the fall guys of the 1974 World Cup.

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The rapid growth of internet sites seemingly beyond the reach of the Premier League’s lawyers is allowing fans the chance to watch their team live online. Martin del Palacio Langer goes surfing

Last May, the Premier League sued YouTube for “having knowingly misappropriated its intellectual property by encouraging footage to be viewed on its site”. The case has not yet been resolved but, as a result of the lawsuit, images of recent matches have disappeared from the site, which now actively tracks and eliminates any videos even remotely related to what is occurring in English stadiums. However, this measure has not meant that football fans around the world have lost their only opportunity of watching the best moments of their favourite matches online. The fall of the popular Google video page gave way to the rise of other sites with even more effective systems, which present highlights online minutes after a game has ended.

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Rioting marred a dramatic final of Africa's Champions League, a competition that struggles in comparison to its European namesake and shares some of its drawbacks. Chris Taylor reports

It was not perhaps the showpiece culmination to the year that the Confederation of African Football (CAF) had hoped for. The Cairo Stadium was full to bursting, with Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak on hand to present the Champions League trophy to the winning team in the presence of massed ranks of dignitaries, and the match itself was certainly exciting. But the occasion ended in mayhem as the victorious Etoile du Sahel players were pelted with missiles and attacked by a mutinous crowd. And by the dignitaries. And the gentlemen of the press. At least no one could accuse them of not taking the competition seriously enough.

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