Only 400 Ghanaians to watch Ghana-Brazil?

As Ghana Takes World Stage, Its Fans Find It Hard to Get a Seat

HANNOVER, Germany Germany is staging the biggest World Cup party in the history of the game, and on Tuesday evening in Dortmund, Ghana will play on the biggest stage in its soccer history against Brazil, the world champion.
The hopes not just of Ghana but of Africa will ride with the team, which calls itself the Black Stars, and which eliminated the United States last week.
There are 63,700 seats in the FIFA World Cup Stadium in Dortmund. Fewer than 400 will be occupied by Ghanaians.
This is in part because of strict European Union visa controls, but also the fault of Ghanaians who reacted late to the visa restrictions applying to them, according to the German government, which said they had been advised of the matter in February of last year.
But in a World Cup for which Germany opened its doors, its stadiums, its streets to unprecedented numbers of visitors - telling them this was "A Time to Make Friends" - the millions sharing the party atmosphere include a mere handful of Ghanaians.
And although Roberto Carlos, the renowned Brazil left back, suggested this week that Ghana has "no chance" of surprising the defending champions, the reality is that the Ghanaians have beaten Brazil, not once but several times, at the World Youth level.
Many observers, including Pelé, the Brazilian who is the most famous player of all time, predicted that Africa's time will come because its potential is so vast and because its poverty lends itself to children spending endless hours on a beach or on wasteland kicking a makeshift ball, making it obey their touch.
This is how Brazil developed "The Beautiful Game," and for two decades it has been how informed observers have seen Africa developing.
The Ghana team is three games from fulfilling the African dream. If it should happen, the African feeling of being shut out will intensify.
Sarfo Abebrese, a leader of the Ghana Supporters Union and an attorney in Accra, said that Africans have been prevented from attending this World Cup, even when they have bought a ticket, paid their airfare, proved that they have the means to pay for accommodations and applied for visas in good time.
FIFA, international soccer's organizing body, allocated about 9,000 tickets to Ghana, some of them through corporations, but, Abebrese said - and the German Embassy in Accra confirms this - only about 400 visa applications were successfully processed. Grace Ashby, a well-known singer who wrote the official song to the Black Stars, was refused entry "even though she has a car, a family income to buy the tickets and had paid her air fare," said Abebrese.
Jens Plötner, a spokesman for the Germany Foreign Ministry, rejected the claim that Ghanaians or Africans were unfairly treated.
The ministry "has seconded additional visa personnel in order to ensure a proper and quick service for visa applications," he said. "However, all visa applicants, whether from Africa or not, have to fulfill EU and Shengen requirements. Shengen law applies and we cannot change procedures for the World Cup."
People need to prove, the ministry said, that they have reason to return, for example evidence of stable employment and family ties.
"Tickets for the games, booked flights and hotels are not necessarily enough," Plötner said.
In effect, the immigration laws in Germany and in the EU need to be satisfied that all those who come to the World Cup intend to go home.
A happier situation is developing across Africa. That continent is to stage the next World Cup, in South Africa in 2010. Normally, its own divisions are manifest in soccer rivalry, as witnessed in January at the African Nations Cup. But today, while Ghana is representing African pride, supporters in countries other than Ghana are rooting for the Black Stars.
"People should realize that it is no longer a question of nationalism," a young boy playing on the beach at Dakar, Senegal, said. "This is about Africa, and bringing the Cup to where it belongs."
He has reason to dream. Senegal defeated France, the then reigning world champion, in the first round of the 2002 World Cup. And with Ghana the last of five African lands who took part this time, the sentiment reflected across the continent was written in a headline in the Cameroon Tribune:
"Ghana," it stated, "Africa's Pride is at Stake." Few Africans will be there to lend the team support.
Panos Kakaviatos in Frankfurt and Beth Dickinson in Dakar contributing reporting.