A star that never rose

UNESCO Courier, April, 1999 by K.K. Man Jusu

Sporting stardom beckons to talented young athletes all over the world, but only very few reach the top. Jean-Jacques Diodan's story is one of many

"They used to tell me sport was just for hooligans. They deceived me." Who did? "Everyone." Jean-Jacques Diodan, from Cote d'Ivoire, is bitter. Any little thing reopens the wound, like the TV programme a few months ago which showed the opening of a school for street children sponsored by his compatriot Basile Boli. Boli was the defence pillar of Olympique Marseilles, a team which, in its glory days, gave France its first-ever European Champions Cup. His was a real success story.

He and Jean-Jacques started out in exactly the same way. A few years apart, they played in the local teams that were all the rage in Abidjan in the 1970s and 1980s. Boli was a great hulk, while Jean-Jacques was a slight figure who became a magician when he had the ball at his feet.

Jean-Jacques became the darling of Abidjan's poor suburb of Treichville, with his cunning dribbles, fierce volleys and brilliant opportunism. All the neighbourhood associations begged him to join their teams. To entice him, they offered him sweets or cakes, a few hundred CFA francs, an aboki (coffee with cream) or a garba (a dish of flied fish and manioc flour).

The talent scouts of the big Abidjan clubs were also sniffing around for future champions. That was how Boli was discovered, along with others like Gadji Celi and Youssouf Fofana, the future star of Monaco. These lads were not obsessed with turning professional. They played because they liked to, because they loved being cheered by the Sunday crowds and sometimes being carried aloft as heroes.

But it became so enjoyable in the end that they sacrificed everything for it, starting with their schoolwork. Jean-Jacques, a bright youth who had entered secondary school when he was 11, started playing truant and skipping classes, beginning with maths and English. His report card summed it all up - playing hookey, bad marks and lack of concentration.

His father, a customs officer so proud of his son that he nicknamed him "the Pele of Treichville", was dumbstruck. He and the rest of the family knew that only the best school leaving certificate, not a football pitch, would ensure the boy's future.

There were rows, punishments and beatings, but to no avail. Jean-Jacques didn't make a clear choice and so ended up losing on both counts. Sport is like a jealous woman who refuses to share her man. If Jean-Jacques refused to devote himself day and night to football, then he wouldn't become a star and wouldn't go off to Europe to earn millions. If he returned to school, he would just limp along.

In the end, to everyone's surprise, he got his leaving certificate but his marks were too poor for him to continue in public high school. The alternative was private schooling. But his angry father refused to pay for that. "If you want to become a Pele, then go and be one," he said sarcastically.

Eventually, a sympathetic elder sister who was a journalist agreed to come up with the money. So Jean-Jacques continued his studies, managed to pass his baccalaureate and even went on to earn a degree in sociology.

But this meant nothing in a labour market overloaded with graduates. Jobless, he lived off his family. His wife, with whom he had a baby, left him because he wasn't earning any money. He dreamed of emigrating to the United States - that he would be chosen from thousands of others as an eligible immigrant and then, in an immigration lottery, win the right to actually go there. He turned once more to his sister, to pay for him to learn a trade.

The fame of the Pele of Treichville never went beyond his neighbourhood, though he is convinced he had the talent to go further. He didn't manage either to get a literature doctorate which, he is equally sure, would have opened the door to a fine career.

Meanwhile Basile Boli is a millionaire and, at 30, Jean-Jacques Diodan is unemployed.

K. K. Man Jusu, Journalist in Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire