Tale of How Africa Keeps Losing Its Brightest Talents
It was in 2021 when the world woke up to the news of an 11- year- old Eric “Godpower” Marshall, playing in the fourth division of the Liberia Football Association League. And football ball lovers immediately embraced the news of the Liberian kid.
The news broke by a tweet from Liberia’s sports journalist T. Kla Wesley and barely a minute after his tweet, hosts of influential global media outlets, including Sports Bible, OhMyGoal and World Sports, Sports Brief, SNL24 retweeted. Outlets of millions of followers immediately reached out.
While the world raved over the kid, attracting international plaudits for being the youngest ever in football history, it seemed a mournful event in Liberia.
The nation was cold over the news. It has since remained cold.
But there have been concerns from his club, Football Club Gar’ou president Alvin Clark, who is unsure if the kid will represent Spain, Portugal, Holland, or other countries, who have reportedly shown appreciation for his talent rather than his native land Liberia.
The current World Cup has shown many African descent players, including some of Liberian descent, represent order countries.
Clark believes that the little attention given to the promising talent is a justification the country doing is nothing to avert recurrence of the situation.
At the World Cup there have been three players of Liberian descent, including Timothy Weah, Haji Wright both of whom represented The United States of America, while Alphonso Davies was a key man for Canada. Whether or not Liberia or Africa will learn from the mismanagement of its brightest talents, it’s likely to be the lingering question over a long haul.
Speaking to FrontPage Africa owner and president of FC Gar’ou Alvin Clark frustration that Liberians are not hailing Marshall whom he described as a potential talent for a long time.
He told our sports desk that there are several top European clubs after the 12-year-old attacking player.
“He has been offered to Ajax, Manchester City, Chelsea, Valencia of late. He is in far better shape than ever. He is more clever, stronger and he is just better,”
“Valencia can’t believe it! He has also been introduced to Barcelona,” Clark said. He said the young Marshall is extremely humbled and doesn’t pride in his skills or talent.
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“He believes that he is the best. He thinks so highly of himself about football, but he will never speak against teammates or opponents or official during games. He will be the first to get dirty, pressing and winning the ball, playing every role on the field to just earn his team maximum or minimum point, if it comes to that,” Clark said about his player.
“Not receiving a single word from Liberia is a surprise. I would think that we would embrace and celebrate him and show him off as the next or current “big thing”. We are used to being amongst the comity of footballing nation through #14. To have gone decades without a footballing recognition of any kind was appalling, but then, more appalling is having a star on hand, but either not recognizing him as one when the entire world does or not willing to embrace him because he came from obscurity, not from any household or attractive social family. It is sad. It is a shame. There are hosts of people who want to adopt him and have him play for their country. The decision will soon be made to have him represent a more deserving or appreciating country,” he disclosed.
