World Leaders Discover Their Sporty Side Amid Soccer Hoopla
June 23, 2006
World leaders have not been shy in stepping forward to bask in the intense media glare surrounding the World Cup. Most visible has been Germany's chancellor, Angela Merkel, who has suddenly emerged from out of nowhere as a big soccer fan and cheerleader-in-chief for the national team.
The former scientist from eastern Germany grabbed box-office seats for all three of the hosts' first round games, clapping and bouncing up and down with glee as Jürgen Klinsmann's team trounced Costa Rica, Poland and Ecuador to reach the last 16.
"I have organized my schedule in such a way that I could watch every match Germany plays, including the final," she told Bild am Sonntag tabloid.
Her new-found passion for the game was most in evidence during the nail-biting clash with the Poles in Dortmund. Merkel gasped, mistakenly cheered, and then threw her arms in the air in despair as the Germans hit the crossbar twice. When Oliver Neuville scored the winner in stoppage time, she jumped out of her seat.
She certainly got German captain Michael Ballack's vote.
"It's great to see how thrilled the chancellor was. I can't remember the last time I saw her as emotional as when we scored that goal against Poland," he said.
Blair dons England colors
More predictably, British Prime Minister Tony Blair has inserted himself into the picture avidly following the fluctuating fortunes of Sven-Göran Eriksson's men in Germany.
Blair, whose popularity is at an all-time low just one year into his third term, is flying the English cross of Saint George above 10 Downing Street on match days and has taken to wearing a white shirt and red tie. He has even said that he would attempt to emulate lanky striker Peter Crouch's jerky "robot dance" should the English go all the way to the final in Berlin on July 9.
Not to be outdone, the man groomed to replace him, Chancellor Gordon Brown, has insisted, not altogether convincingly, that despite being Scottish born and bred, he is fully behind the England team.
Chirac and Bush root home teams
Merkel, Blair and Brown are not alone.
Whenever France take to the field, President Jacques Chirac's office lets it be known that he is "in his office watching the game," having made patriotically sure his agenda allows him time to do that.
And US President George W. Bush, while admitting he knew next to nothing about soccer, still found time to send his encouragements to the Stars and Stripes team. More comfortable with the vocabulary inside the baseball diamond, Bush urged his boys to "play hard and keep their heads up."
"Proud of my boys"
But world leaders' enthusiasm for their teams can also backfire as Brazil's populist president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Lula for short, found out. The president poked a light-hearted dig at star striker Ronaldo over his weight problems only to find he had stirred a hornet's nest of sensitivity.
A miffed Ronaldo hit back saying that if he was fat then everyone knew that former union leader Lula drank too much. It all got a trifle nasty and could have done with the silky smooth diplomatic skills of UN chief Kofi Annan to sort things out.
Only he was busy getting behind his home team Ghana, who have been carrying the African flag at the World Cup.
"I'm proud of my boys," Annan said, bemoaning Thursday that he would have to miss the crunch game against the United States as he would be "trapped in a plane" on the way back to New York.
Ghana prez locks himself up in office
But there was no way Ghana's President John Kufuor was going to miss the crucial Ghana-USA clash on Thursday. Sending the Black Stars his best wishes and that of the entire nation before the crucial clash, Kufuor gave his country a half-day holiday Thursday to watch the game.
The president told the BBC he was so nervous, he locked himself into his office alone to watch the game. "I didn't want people around me ... so if my nerves had gotten the better of me, nobody would know," Kufuor said.
Kufuor's fears proved unfounded as the Black Stars beat the US 2-1 and made history by storming into the World Cup final 16 for the first time. It also remains the only African nation in this World Cup to avoid elimination in the group stage.