Capital Balls FIFA football balls

Mahjoub: “The history does not belong to me alone.”
Your archive of African football must be the only one of its kind worldwide. What prompted you to put this collection together?
Faouzi Mahjoub: I love football and I’m passionate about the history of the sport. In the early 1960s, I realised that, through my work as an African football correspondent, it was my duty not only to report on African football but also to document it. Who else was as well placed to do so as me?
Why did you hand over your archive to FIFA ?
Mahjoub: The history does not belong to me alone, and it is extremely important to me that my collection is available to all those with an interest in African football. FIFA’s documentation centre undoubtedly has the necessary expertise and resources to look after the archive.
So what are you personally expecting of the 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa™?
Mahjoub: I hope that South Africa will show its best side and stage an exceptional tournament on behalf of the entire African continent. On which note, it is essential to bear in mind that the 2010 World Cup belongs to a whole continent. It would be a grave mistake to view it solely as a black African tournament.
Will the 2010 FIFA World Cup™ lend fresh impetus to football in Africa?
Mahjoub: Africa has long been producing great players, but seldom great national teams. Hopefully, the World Cup will lead to a strengthening of the national leagues and also provide a wider platform that will help African teams to flourish. It is vital to invest in infrastructure, but it is also key to invest in the training of coaches, training staff and technical directors. We still have a lot to do in this respect.

By acquiring the world’s most comprehensive archive on the history of African football, FIFA’s documentation centre is making a valuable contribution to the understanding and promotion of African football.
There was great joy when the 2010 FIFA World Cup™ was awarded to South Africa in May 2004. Despite the fact that all the matches are being held in South Africa, 2010 will be viewed as a tournament for the entire African continent, as reflected in the official slogan “KE NAKO. Celebrate Africa’s Humanity.”
But little is known of the history of football in Africa. Of course, great African players like Didier Drogba, Samuel Eto’o and Michael Essien play for major European clubs and attract attention because they play in leading tournaments such as the FIFA World Cup™, the Africa Cup of Nations or the UEFA Champions League. But where do these exceptionally talented players come from? Where did they learn their footballing ABC? For which clubs and in which leagues in their homelands did they play when they were younger?
It is extremely difficult to track down answers to these questions. The shortage and neglected state of archives in many African countries and the failure to fully realise the importance of chronicling the game mean that African football is not nearly as well documented as it deserves to be. South Africa’s successful bid for the 2010 FIFA World Cup™ therefore provided the stimulus to fill this information gap. But how?
MAHJOUB’S ARCHIVE
Faouzi Mahjoub is a long-time observer and aficionado of African football. In the 1960s, the Tunisian journalist, based in Paris, worked for several publications such as the renowned French publication Miroir du Football and the magazines JeuneAfrique and Ajrique Asie. As a media affairs adviser to the Confederation of African Football (CAF) from 1988 to 2004 and a member of FIFA’s Media Committee from 1990 to 2006, the 66-year-old has always enjoyed a close relationship with football’s leading institutions.
Mahjoub was not only one of the first journalists to report on football in Africa, but also one of the few to have recognised the need to keep records for posterity. Over the years in his Paris apartment, Mahjoub has put together a painstakingly detailed and comprehensive archive of the history of African football that is surely unparalleled in the world of sports documentation.
This archive is a stroke of luck for FIFA, especially as Mahjoub announced in 2006 that he was prepared to hand over his archive, which comprises some 7,000 documents and more than 2,000 photos, to FIFA’s documentation centre. “The history does not belong to me, and FIFA is undoubtedly the best institution in the world of football to give my collection for safekeeping,” says Mahjoub. For two years, Mahjoub has been helping FIFA compile the archive, integrate it into FIFA’s documentation centre, and make it accessible to interested parties.
Mahjoub’s archives consist mainly of documents from national and continental sports institutions as well as the leading print publications that began appearing in France and Africa in the 1960s. These provide a treasure trove of information on national and continental competitions, tournaments, teams and leading lights of African football. Another integral part of the collection, invaluable from a historical point of view, is the photogtaphs Mahjoub took himself on his many journeys throughout Africa as a correspondent for various publications. These photos have filled a major gap in FIFA’s picture archive.
DVD FOR CAF’S ANNIVERSARY
The investment of transporting Mahjoub’s archive from Paris to Zurich paid offsoon after its arrival when FIFA chose to present CAF, on the occasion of its 50th anniversary (the confederation was established in Khartoum on 7 February 1957), with a DVD providing a compact and clearly structured chronicle of the entire history of African football. For this, a large part of Mahjoub’s archives had to be indexed, selected, classified, scanned and compiled into an attractive whole.
There was such an abundance of information that the final product was burned onto five DVDs. The result of the efforts is impressive. The DVDs feature dossiers on all 53 CAF associations and their correspondence with FIFA, an in-depth presentation of CAF since its foundation, containing written, audio and visual accounts, portraits of the greatest players that Africa has produced, from Larbi Ben Barek to Samuel Eto’o, and finally archives recounting Pele’s visits to Africa. They also feature all the African articles from France Football (1970-1977) Miroir du Football (1962-1976), and a complete set of statistics from the FIFA database containing information on all the international matches contested by African national teams since their affiliation to FIFA. What is more, there is also a detailed history of the Africa Cup of Nations (1957-2008) and African participation in the FIFA World Cup™ (1934-2006), with the DVD showing all the goals scored by African teams since the 1970 FIFA World Cup™.

Bibiana Steinhaus
Born: 24 March 1979 in Bad Lauterberg (Germany)
Nationality: German
Height: 1 81m
Weight: 73kg
Profession: Police officer
Sporting career: Footballer with SV Bad Lauterberg and the Niedersachsen police team. Since 1995: Referee. Since 1999: German football association referee (women’s league, men’s fourth division). Since 2001: Men’s third division. Since 2007: Men’s second division. Sporting highlights: Referee for the German Women’s Cup final in 2003. Personal honours: DFB female referee of the year 2007 and 2008. Steinhaus has refereed 62 matches in the men’s third division and seven in the second division.

Bibiana Steinhaus is the boss
A female referee who last year became the first woman to officiate in division two of the men’s league is attracting praise in Germany. Bibiana Steinhaus is the woman who could soon be refereeing first division matches.
Cameron Diaz and Cindy Crawford have already been on. So have Lionel Ritchie and Anna Netrebko. Oliver Kahn, too. A constant stream of international stars at the top of their game have taken a seat on German TV show host Thomas Gottschalk’s couch. When the producers of the show Wetten, dass… ? [Want to bet?] call, no one turns them down. Regular viewing figures of more than 10 million are a powerful incentive.
Last autumn, Bibiana Steinhaus was also invited to appear on the most successful Saturday night show in the German-speaking world. But she declined. Because, after all, what did she have to boast about compared to the stars that regularly appear on Gottschalk’s show? She had only refereed a second division match.
But the Paderborn-Hoffenheim match, a seemingly unremarkable fixture, caused quite a stir in Germany on that balmy evening of 21 September. Because Steinhaus was the first women to officiate a professional match for the German football association (DFB). The match was attended by representatives of lifestyle magazines, who rarely show an interest in sport, as well as radio and television reporters. The interview marathon that began after the final whistle at 19.45h lasted until almost midnight, and the next day there followed a live appearance on das aktuelle Sportstudio, the mother of all sports talk shows on German television.
FULL OF PRAISE
Steinhaus turned down the endorsement deal she was offered by a jam manufacturer shortly afterwards. The 29-year-old finds the hype surrounding her rather amusing and knows that a degree of publicity is part and parcel of being a successful referee these days. But she does set boundaries, because as the only woman in a male-dominated profession she has a special status, even if the public hype has died down somewhat by now. She also knows that for those who judge her and her career as a referee, only her performance matters.
The German football association’s head of refereeing, Volker Roth, who has since offered Steinhaus more challenging assignments than her introductory match, is positive about her performance after seven games in the second division: “She has earned great respect.” This explains why the police officer from Hanover was recently selected, along with Christine Beck, as female referee of the year.
Roth’s views are also supported by statements from footballers. “Her refereeing was very good, there was absolutely nothing to object to,” says national team player Patrick Helmes, for example, who played with Cologne last season and is now a striker for Bayer Leverkusen.
Thorsten Judt goes even further: “I have no doubt that she could also referee in the first division; up to now she has received positive reactions from all quarters. I would have nothing against more women refereeing if their performance is up to standard.” The captain of recently relegated Kickers Offenbach explains what sets her apart as a referee: “She has a pleasant manner, she’s not so dogged and is always up for a little fun. As players, we try to behave better than we would towards a man, at least to be more polite, not so brash.”
PREVENTIVE ACTION
Bibiana Steinhaus has good conflict management skills on the pitch. She deploys her personality and her feminine wiles. At 1.81m she is at eye level with most professional players and she is just as likely to smile mischievously as she is to train her sparkling blue eyes on an offending player. The fact that with her sandy blonde hair most of the players consider her good-looking surely does not hurt. And she knows what makes footballers tick. “I try to take preventive action. If someone has just scored a great goal, then I know that he might run to the fence to celebrate, and I try to prevent him from doing so,” explains the keen long-distance runner, who as a consequence usually does not have to issue too many cards.
Will all this be enough for her to become the first woman to referee in Germany’s first division before long? Roth refuses to be drawn, but repeats: “There are neither advantages nor disadvantages because she is a woman. She is judged in exactly the same way as her male colleagues.”
People will be curious to see whether the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2011™, to be organised by the German football association, will have any influence on her career. As a self-confessed supporter of women’s football, the president of the German football association, Theo Zwanziger, campaigned strongly to host the championship. Along with a strong national team, having a female referee in the men’s first division, which is common practice in other countries, would, of course, be a very welcome development.
And once Bibiana Steinhaus has celebrated her debut in the Bundesliga she surely will not turn down Thomas Gottschalk again. Want to bet?