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Like many people from Northern Ireland, I support two international football teams: Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.

This isn’t being greedy – constitutionally speaking, anyway. One of the provisions of the Good Friday Agreement power sharing peace deal of 1998 was the recognition of “the birthright of all the people of Northern Ireland to identify themselves and be accepted as Irish or British, or both, as they may so choose”.

But while some more hardline Catholics / nationalists would choose not to support Northern Ireland and some Protestants / unionists would choose not to support the Republic, I would say with confidence that they’re both as likely, give or take, not to support England. Myself included. Something that living in England for the last ten years has done little if anything to change.

Tonight the Three Lions line up against a country with colonial baggage who play in white and green, Algeria. Hmmm, tough one.

But let’s set aside unwavering partisan bias for just a few moments, and instead look at cold hard social justice data, which Who Should I Cheer For has so kindly assembled in one handy place. Who should I be mindlessly honking my vuvuzela for tonight?

Well, with a national income per person of less than a quarter of the size of the UK’s (£21,604), Algeria (£4,490) are clearly underdogs in development terms, as well as on the football field. Their (pretty charitable) FIFA ranking is 30, 22 below England’s.

In the inequality stakes, the North African country perform better. For every £1 the poorest 10 per cent earn, the richest 10 per cent get £9.6, compared to £13.8 in England – a big tick in Algeria’s favour.

It’s far from cut and dried, though. While Algeria’s carbon emissions per person, 5.5 tonnes, are around half that of England’s, they’re still pretty sizeable. Only 1 in 10 of those in government in Algeria are women, much lower than the UK, even with the current regime’s pitiful lack of women at the top cabinet table.

Even worse, the former French colony’s military spending is actually marginally larger than England’s (2.9% of GDP compared to 2.7%). In fact, if you discount South Africa, who are let down by massive, Apartheid fuelled inequalities and large carbon emissions, Algeria are the least supportable African team according to WSICF stats, at 22 out of the 32 teams.

However, before I unfurl my miniature St George’s cross, a couple of mitigating factors should be taken into account. Firstly, Algeria’s high military spend can partly be explained by the fact that the country only came out of its decade long civil war against Islamic extremists in 2002. Secondly, the fossil fuels sector accounts for over 95% of Algeria’s export earnings, which have helped the government improve infrastructure, industry and agriculture since the end of the civil war.

So I’m sorry Fabio. Even on ethical grounds I can’t support you.

Posted in: Algeria, England, England-Algeria

Views expressed here are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of the World Development Movement.

I was surprised to find that that South Korea is ranked only 29th out of the 32 countries by ‘Who should I cheer for’ below even England and only two places above the US! The issue South Korea really loses out in the ranking is the amount it spends on the military (as well as its high carbon dioxide emissions). South Korea spends on weapons 2.6 times the amount that Argentina does and emits 9.7 tons of  carbon dioxide per person compared to just the 3.7 tons per person which Argentina emits.

With a nuclear armed North Korea as a neighbour, perhaps this high military spending is understandable? After all it is easy to put the blame on North Korea with the many horrendous human rights abuses committed by the fascist regime of Kim Jong-il. But to understand how we ended up in this precarious situation of a Korea split in to two heavily militarised states; which are still officially at war it is necessary to understand the history of the division. Korea was liberated in 1945 from Japanese rule, in the south of the country by the US and in the north by the USSR.

It is often held that the Korean War was started by the war mongering North Korea simply invading the South. This ignores the complexities of the issue. In his insightful book, Rogue State, William Blum highlights that under US occupation their progressive wartime allies (who were extremely popular) were violently suppressed and the US instead supported the conservatives who had collaborated with the Japanese. This made unification of Korea near impossible and essentially made the Korean War, in which 2.5 million civilians were murdered, inevitable.

The war would see many war crimes and not just ones committed by the North, which had a policy of assassinating all intelligencia located in the South. Just as horrific was the South’s mass killing of anyone suspected of being a communist sympathiser which led to up to 100,000 bodies being dumped in trenches, mines and the sea. The US too committed many war crimes. For example, concerned that there might be some northern soldiers mixed in with group of 400 civilians they decided to machine gun all of the unarmed civilians and massacred hundreds more by happily blowing up bridges packed full of fleeing refugees. Not only did the US repression cause the Korean War and cost nearly four and a half million people their lives, it also led to a long line of corrupt, reactionary, and ruthless dictatorships in South Korea.

The blame must be layed squarely at the door of the US, UK and other NATO countries, but given the memory of the dead and the many fears for the future; I will find it hard to cheer for anyone during the games which either of the Koreas are playing in.

Posted in: Argentina, Matches, South Korea, Teams

Views expressed here are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of the World Development Movement.

In what has the potential to be quite an interesting group (despite the presence of Switzerland) Honduras sit astride the Who Should I Cheer For? rankings like a veritable colossus. Chile, on the other hand, rank the lowest of any of the South American countries and lie a lowly 23rd. However, these bare statistics cover a multitude of subtleties.

On the footballing side, Chile finished second only to Brazil in South American qualifying, cutting a swathe through the continent with their ultra attacking line-up, starring play-maker Matias Fernandez, the twinkly Alexis Sanchez and tubby goal machine Humberto Suazo. And thats without even mentioning one of the greatest of a long line of flop Liverpool wingers, Mark Gonzalez. In a frustratingly cagey tournament thus far, Chile, with their 3 at the back formation and commitment to pouring numbers forward, bear a weight of expectation, and unlike many of the teams in the past week, will be eager to get a victory under their belt in the opener, with tougher games to come.

Honduras passage to the finals was somewhat less stylish, edging out Costa Rica in the CONCACACACACAF section, but they will be hoping to prove the doubters wrong over the next few weeks. The three Palacios brothers, including star midfielder Wilson, add a touch of pathos to the team, having discovered last year that their younger brother Edwin, who had been held hostage by a gang in Honduras for 2 years, had been found dead.

Despite relatively high levels of inequality, Hondurans desperately low national income, high numbers of chronically hungry, low carbon emissions and low levels of military spending means that they are ranked highly in the supportability stakes. However, it should be borne in mind that the current president was elected under the conditions of a military coup dtat last year, and many countries around the world, including those of MERCOSUR have refused to recognise the results.

Leftist President Manuel Zelaya had been ousted by the military after a constitutional dispute with the Honduran Supreme Court, and the national teams qualification for the World Cup last year was achieved against a background of the suspension of human rights.

Chile offer quite a contrast to this turmoil. In the twenty years since the military junta of General Pinochet was ended by plebiscite, Chile, thanks to stable government and sensible economic policies, has prospered. From the depths of poverty in the middle of the last century, Chile is now one of the most prosperous nations in South America, and last year became the first country in the region to join the OECD.

Poverty has been reduced from 45% in the 80s to below 14% today, and Chile is a net creditor rather than a debtor, a remarkable achievement.

This has been achieved under a series of centre left governments, culminating with the 4 year term of Chiles last president, Michelle Bachelet. The first woman in Latin America to hold such an office, Bachelet is a qualified paediatrician and epidemiologist, an avowed agnostic, and in 2008, was voted 15th in Time Magazine’s list of the worlds most influential people.

Furthermore, her father was tortured to death under the Pinochet regime, and she pledged her presidency to eradicating poverty in Chile, and reducing one of the highest rates of inequality in the world. She built huge numbers of crches for poorer children, established a minimum state pension, significantly extended free healthcare, and abolished the last of the slums with an enormously subsidised housing programme, ending her term earlier this year with approval ratings of 84%. That said, the less said about her Harvard-educated right-wing billionaire successor the better.

The already impoverished Honduran people have had a lot to put up with in the past 12 months, and their underdog credentials are undeniable, but while the Who Should I Cheer For? rankings may give the impression that this match is a cut and dried affair, Chile’s achievements in escaping from poverty and despotism should nonetheless be celebrated. And if they bring their form from the qualifiers to South Africa, their football could be similarly fted by a worldwide audience starting become jaded by footballing conservatism.

Posted in: Chile, Chile-Honduras, Honduras

Views expressed here are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of the World Development Movement.

The image of a heartbroken Luís Figo walking back to the dressing rooms, past a team of jubilant, victorious Greeks after the final whistle of Euro 2004 had blown is still one that I recall vividly whenever I think of the Greek football team. The thought of a stadium full of dejected Portuguese supporters, looking on as their was defeated in front of a home audience, even as confetti rained down on a team whose odds of winning had been pegged at 150-1 leaves me with mixed feelings.

While I am neutral towards Portugal, I do have a lot of respect for Figo; not only for his illustrious footballing career, but also his work with charities such as Stop TB, Soccer Aid and UNICEF. It was difficult to watch his career ending on a note of such abject defeat at the hands of the Greeks (Figo had announced that the tournament would be his last, before his departure from international football). However, with the odds stacked up so against them, it was impossible not to marvel at the fighting spirit and resilience that had brought the underdog Greek team to stage their first ever victory in an international tournament, and what has deemed one of “international football’s greatest surprises”.

My feelings towards Greece’s opponents in their opening match this World Cup, South Korea, are similarly undecided, due to a long-standing grudge. Having got through to the quarter-finals of the 2002 World Cup, my hopes were firmly pinned on Spain to win the tournament. I watched in horror as they lost the penalty shootout to South Korea, not quite believing the result when the final whistle blew. Despite all the accusations that home advantage and referee bias had played a part in bringing the Taeguk Warriors, as they are known, to a fourth place in the tournament, one had to acknowledge that it was a pretty monumental feat for them to have accomplished. A team that had been defeated 0-9 and 0-7 in their first World Cup participation in 1954, before failing to qualify for the tournament for the next 32 years, the South Koreans truly proved to be the admirable underdogs at the 2002 World Cup that they co-hosted with Japan.

Given my ambivalence towards both the teams playing in the first match of the day, who then will I be cheering for? Both Greece and Korea are relative underdogs, made more so by the fact that they share a group with the formidable Argentina. The decision is further complicated by the fact that despite the vastly different cultures and values of both countries, their score sheets based on criteria such as income per capita, carbon emissions, life expectancy and female leadership, the countries are well matched. The only major disparity lies in the fact that Greece has one of the highest rates of expenditure on military spending amongst all competing countries, incredibly spending almost twice what South Korea – technically still at war – does.

On the other hand, South Korea’s conciliatory sporting attitude towards their North Korean neighbours despite the recent sinking of a South Korean warship and North Korea’s subsequent violation of the pact of non-aggression is quite admirable – they have not only submitted a bid to jointly host the 2022 World Cup with North Korea, and remain open to co-hosting the event, they also continue to send food and economic aid to the north despite rising tensions, a commendable stance.

Placed 47th in the football rankings as opposed to 13th-place Greece, South Korea are the clear underdogs. However, it is impossible to predict the dynamics of the clash, as the two countries have never gone up against one another before. While I will be cheering for the plucky Taeguk warriors, I’m sure that both nations are bound to put up a valiant fight, making for an unpredictable and exciting start to the second day of the World Cup.

Posted in: Greece, South Korea, South Korea-Greece

Views expressed here are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of the World Development Movement.

Group E

Netherlands

Tipped in the WDM office as possible dark-horse winners, despite injury putting Arjen Robben’s participation in doubt, the Oranje are an attractive bet at 10/1. They can also lay claim to being the ethical punters’ choice, being the most generous aid donor at the tournament and one of only two competitors that have met the long-standing target of giving 0.7% of their gross national income as overseas aid. The Dutch give 0.82% of GNI in 2007, edging out, by a mere 0.1%,…

Denmark

…the other country to receive an overseas aid gold star from the OECD. The Danes have the distinction of winning a major championship – Euro 92 – after receiving a place only as a direct result of a UN Security Council Resolution (number 757, which ended Yugoslavia’s tournament before it had begun). They’ve never come close to repeating the trick and, with a strong Cameroonian challenge for second place, may well fall at the first hurdle for the first time in their history.

Japan

The first World Cup to be held in Africa features both hosts of the first in Asia, the joint Japan-South Korea tournament of eight years ago. The Japanese caused England problems last week, but their one goal was the only one in a four-match warm-up schedule, and their qualifying campaign was none too convincing either. Japan enjoys mid-table security/obscurity in the WSICF? rankings, but it’s hard not to like a country where the Prime Minister resigns because he broke an election promise – especially when that promise was to close foreign military bases. Expect another resignation – from Head Coach Takeshi Okada – before June is out.

Cameroon

With Didier Drogba (Ivory Coast) doubtful and his Chelsea teammate Michael Essien (Ghana) out of the tournament, Cameroon’s Sameal Eto’o could be set to be the continent’s hero in South Africa. Pity he doesn’t have the team around him to make a repeat of their 1990 quarter-final run all that likely. 1990 hero Roger Milla’s criticism of Eto’o – that he has performed well for European bosses but done nothing for Cameroon – would be a rather fairer description of the country’s famous rainforests and shrimp fisheries, both of which have been exploited enthusiastically by Western entrepreneurs while the Camerounais suffer the second-worst rate of chronic hunger in the tournament, with 23% not getting enough to eat.

Group F

Italy

The home of this author’s forefathers, it’s fair to say that La Patria is dodgy at best on both a footballing and social justice estimation. The ageing champions will be doing well to progress beyond the quarter-finals, with the Netherlands their likely opponents.

If Italy’s midfield feel a little past their sell-by date, Silvio Berlusconi’s leadership is positively rancid. With total control of the media, Silvio has shifted the Italian mainstream to the right and encouraged the rise of ultra-nationalist groups such as the Lega Nord. The effect is visible in our rankings: Italy’s overseas aid commitment is less than a third of the OECD target, and its economic inequality is worse than any other European competitors’ – except England.

Paraguay

Known to football fans mainly for the heroics of former keeper Jose Luis Chilavert, who – lest we forget – has scored more international goals than Emile Heskey, Paraguay qualified strongly, finishing ahead of Argentina in the 10-team CONMEBOL mega-group.

That campaign featured only 3 draws – a feast-or-famine record that seems appropriate for the most unequal country at the World Cup. The richest 10% of Paraguayans collect over £65 for every £1 earned by the poorest 10%. I wonder what a similar comparison between the richest and poorest players here would look like?

New Zealand

The All Whites qualified for this World Cup – their second – from a group which comprised Fiji, Vanuatu and New Caledonia. As a native of the Old Caledonia, whose group included the Netherlands and Norway and whose players are therefore not in South Africa but relaxing at home with a pizza supper, this fills me with rage.

How frustrating, then, New Zealand is top of the Global Peace Index and boasts the kind of legislation banning nuclear weapons in her territorial waters that has been proposed, but not progressed, by Scotland’s government.

I’d love to hate New Zealand. But it would be like kicking a kitten.

Slovakia

This may be the Slovaks’ first World Cup but they look good bets to qualify from a weak group. Plus, be fair, they’ve only been a country since 1994.

The country is has experienced rapid economic growth since the break-up of Czechoslovakia, yet enjoys the most equal distribution of wealth in the tournament and enviably low carbon emissions – less per capita than those of the hosts.

Posted in: Cameroon, Denmark, Group previews, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, New Zealand, Paraguay, Slovakia

Views expressed here are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of the World Development Movement.