Our in-house author visited Cuba and dives into Cuban Football, into the culture of a politically torn country with a deep love for the game.
It goes without saying that if you were looking for something that was to embody modern-day capitalism, it would be football. Carlos Tevez earns £87,000 a day in China. 24 hours. Enough to make you reflect on the meaning of life. Even administrators of the game and FIFA officials, have used the sport to live lavish lifestyles previously only known to royalty and rock stars. If anything captures the romantic ‘’rags-to-riches’’ ideal which capitalism thrives off, it’s football. So it would make sense that football is currently at a crossroads in the country which represents the antithesis of capitalism: Cuba. The communist hub of the world, a country which has boldly stuck by its socialist identity and outlawed professional sports contracts in the 1960s.
A journey into modern-day Havana reveals an ideological juxtaposition which initially boggles the mind – 1950s American cars cruise through the roads, there is no wi-fi, and for a split second you feel like you are in a time-warp, until you see people walking the streets in Messi and Ronaldo football shirts or blazing American hip-hop on stereos. In a country where baseball has traditionally been the most popular sport, there has been a rapidly growing interest in football. A quick stroll through Havana‘s old town reveals an array of bars packed with people watching Real Madrid’s battle against Bayern Munich in the UEFA Champions League. News reports on TV cover football news and highlights and Cuba has taken to the beautiful global game full of glamour and riches, but local football? – ‘’Nobody watches Cuban football, it’s only Barcelona or Madrid,’’ says Juan, the Airbnb host we are staying with. It’s incomparable, with no stars or heavily-marketed games, no salaries and a low standard of play. Players earning a meagre 20 USD a month in the local football league (Campeonato Nacional de Fútbol de Cuba) with hardly any coverage or news, don’t represent the aspirations of the modern Cuban. My attempts to catch a local game were hindered first by a lack of information (with no adverts and internet connections rare, it was a tough mission to find out when and where games were taking place) and then the disappointing news relayed to me by a local at a bar that the Cuban local league was currently in the midst of a mid-season break. This lack of professionalism and interest in the local game is why Cuba, despite being the first Caribbean team to qualify for a World Cup in 1938, have subsequently been perennial underachievers.
