Towel of intrigue: Was it juju that helped Senegal win the African Cup?

Whenever Mendy’s attention had turned to the game, they tried to sneak in and steal the towel. The intrusions caught the eyes of Mendy’s deputy Yehvann Diouf, who fiercely guarded it, as though it were a piece of treasure. Soon, it turned into an open fight with some of the exuberant ball boys trying to snatch the ball from him.

Morocco full-back Acharaf Hakimi too joined once and flung the towel to the advertising board. But Diouf would reclaim the prized possession and ensured that it remained with him even after the match was over. The events were enough for Moroccan supporters to sniff some voodoo, or more precisely what is called in West Africa “Juju”, or witchcraft, and which has been a recurrent protagonist in African football and AFCON. Some shattered fans even claimed that they walked off to the change room, protesting the penalty, to perform the ‘juju’. The missed penalty would have galvanised their suspicion.

The juju paraphernalia is straight from a horror flick — white powder, sacred water, leaves of mystery shrubs, oil (often smeared on goalposts).

Not the first time 

All the AFCON champions, at least in this century, had formidable teams, with most of the players drawn from Europe’s top-five leagues. But rumours swirl of the dark world’s sway on games.

In the 2002 edition, the local police arrested members of the Cameroonian coach staff alleging that they had placed a charm on the pitch. In the edition before that, a Nigerian official removed a “charm” from the back of Senegal’s goal. Ghana’s fans were denied entry to the stadium for carrying pots with leaves and liquids in the 2008 edition.

The most bizarre accusation was levelled against Zambia’s striker Christopher Katongo. His lone goal was the difference in most games and some opponents claimed he had performed a “juju” to bolt the goalpost after he scored the goal.

Fans are so blinded by the powers of the supernatural that a self-proclaimed healer scammed 33,000 pounds from them to perform “juju” to guarantee victory in the AFCON in Mali last week. As recently as last November, Nigeria coach Éric Chelle claimed Congo DPR beat his team by voodoo. In 2011, an innocent cat was mauled to death by a bunch of Heart of Oaks fans in the Ghana Premier League, simply because they feared the feline was their opponents’ idea of casting a juju spell.

Cameroon legend Samuel Eto’o remembers a story when their opponents Nigeria refused to enter the dressing room during half time. “They said they weren’t going in because we’d put a spell on their dressing room,” he explained. Then so did Cameroon, who entered the dressing room only after a mystic had purified the area.

Memory Mucherahowa, Zimbabwe’s greatest footballer, wrote in his 2017 autobiography. “Every week before a game the team would consult a traditional healer. I, as team captain, would be the one to execute whatever the sangoma [juju-man] had said. Whether it actually aided us, I do not know.”

Action

The scuffles over alleged Juju rituals became so frequent that the Confederation of African Football (CAF) began to impose hefty fines if such instances were proved. “We are no more willing to see witch doctors on the pitch than cannibals at the concession stands. Such incidents to propagate the image of Africa as a third-world continent,” a CAF statement read.

Some countries, such as Zambia, have outlawed the practice. That hasn’t meant such practices or claims have stopped, adding a layer of colour and intrigue to a game that is becoming increasingly scientific and structural. But whether it influences football games is as mysterious as the practices themselves.

A quote by former Senegalese coach Bruno Metsu sums it up: “Maybe two or three are susceptible to that kind of thing but the rest just treat it as a joke. Otherwise, we’d have won the World Cup ages ago.”