Togo Withdraws From African Cup of Nations After Attack

A lot of times soccer around the globe sets itself up for ridicule by American fans that are predisposed to mock the sport.

Friday's machine gun attack of the Togo national team by Angolan rebels in the Cabinda region that left three dead, is without question the saddest story in recent soccer memory, as well as the most disturbing one as well.

Saturday, in the wake of the stunning and chilling attack, Togo withdrew from the 2010 tournament and urged other nations to follow suit. Togo was scheduled to play Ghana on Monday in its opening game.

At this point, I think the rest of the teams in the tournament should very strongly consider going home as well. Three people are already dead, others are injured. How can you concentrate on sports when your safety is heavily called into question?

Angolan and tournament officials might counter that this attack happened in a war-torn area of the country that's been in flux for the last 20 years. That's not the point.

Heavily-armed rebels opened fire on the Togo team "like dogs," as one player put it Friday, causing the players to hide under their seats in fear for their lives for nearly 20 minutes.

Reread that last sentence. The Togo team was fired at with machine guns by rebels during normal pre-tournament activities. Machine guns.

It doesn't matter if it was a one-time, isolated incident. It still happened.

If something even remotely close to this happened to an American team, or a team that wasn't an African soccer team, it might cause ESPN to implode upon itself. It would be the biggest story of all its outlets, but since it happened to a team and country most Americans don't even know exist, it happens almost in a vacuum, at least to Americans.

Beyond the pure insanity of what happened on Friday, look at the clubs the players are employed by. They're already leery of sending some of their stars away on international games, let alone games where they might get killed. What do you think the Chelsea brain trust is thinking today with stars Didier Drogba and Michael Essien in Angola representing Cote d'Ivoire and Ghana, respectively? Better yet, what was going through Manchester City's mind when the news first broke that a player was shot, with Emmanuel Adebayor on board the Togo bus?

It would seem like this would be fair grounds for forcing the countries to release the players back to their clubs, no?

And what about the five African World Cup finalists -- Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana, Cameroon, Nigeria and Algeria? Is it worth risking their safety to continue participating in the tournament? Aren't the players going to be looking over their shoulders the rest of the way?

Something that probably doesn't get talked about enough, or even thought of, is many times these big-time African players that play in Europe put a lot at risk when they return home to represent their countries. Just Google "African Soccer Stampede" and, sadly, you get hundreds of results.

This last issue addresses why, barring a player walkout, the African Cup of Nations probably won't be abandoned. In less than six months the World Cup kicks off in South Africa. In essentially the entire build-up to the 2010 tournament, FIFA has had to fend off questions of whether or not Africa was ready to host the world's marquee sporting event. By canceling the Cup of Nations, Sepp Blatter and his cronies in Geneva would send up a major red flag for everyone traveling to South Africa.

It doesn't matter that the political situations and safety situations in Angola and South Africa are completely different. People are simply going to see "Africa" and "trouble" and equate the two separate tournaments.

FIFA would have major egg on its face if it pulled the plug in Angola.

However, is that any worse than the horror experienced by Togo, soccer players or not, on Friday?

When you have Togo striker Jonathan Ayite telling French radio, "... even if you bring the president and even (Barack) Obama himself, we're leaving immediately. We're going back home. Ghana and the Ivory Coast are in solidarity with us," then it's probably within grounds to call off the tournament.

Some could say continuing to play the tournament honors the victims. In this case the players themselves have a chance to log a major protest, forcing the powers that be in African soccer to look at some of the hard issues that have plagued the game on the continent.