LIAM BOOTH asks why an African country has not won the World Cup

It was arguably football’s greatest ever player, Pele, who once proclaimed that by the year 2000, “An African team will have won the World Cup”. Yet 13 years on, the continent which is home to some of the poorest countries in the world has been left with only a few scraps of quarter-final heartbreak. The question is, why has a first triumph proved so elusive for a continent that is home to over one billion Africans?
The answer cannot be put down to the quality of players that Africa is producing. Parti...