The Ghanan and the Flag
Israellycool reader Joseph writes to me about a curious incident at the World Cup:
…..when Ghana won, one of the Ghanian players pulled out an Israeli flag and waved it all around on his victory run…I did not see this game due to the Jewish Sabbath, so I did some detective work, and managed to find proof of what Joseph was referring to, in the form of the following picture and caption:
Ghana’s Sulley Ali Muntari (C) celebrates after scoring his team’s second goal against the Czech Republic with team mates as Ghana’s John Painstil (R) holds an Israeli flag during their Group E World Cup 2006 soccer match in Cologne June 17, 2006. Painstil plays for Israeli club Hapoel Tel Aviv. REUTERS/Albert Gea
I like how the Reuters man added in an explanation for the flag - in case you G-d forbid thought that Painstil was displaying it in a sign of solidarity with Israel.
Update: More reader power! Brian from London notes that 3 Ghanan players play club football in Israel. Golda would be proud.
Update: Now the Jerusalem Post have a story on Painstil’s gesture, but do not really shed any light as to whether he did it as a sign of solidarity with Israel, or just for his Hapoel Tel Aviv teammates.
Sources at Hapoel Tel Aviv disclosed later that the Ghanaian international had promised to perform the act if his team scored in the World Cup.
An Australian immigrant to Israel, Aussie Dave has been blogging since early 2003.
June 17th, 2006 at 2:39 pm
He waved it after the match too
June 17th, 2006 at 2:46 pm
Heh!
June 17th, 2006 at 2:50 pm
My wife and I saw it in the post match celebration too!
Brian
June 17th, 2006 at 2:56 pm
Figured it out…..
http://www.cbc.ca/sports/worldcup2006/groups/teams/ghana.html
Check out the Ghanaian team… I count 3 players who play club football in Israel.
Brian
June 17th, 2006 at 5:38 pm
I saw it after the match and had no idea how to place the gesture, but I absolutely knew I could find out here. Thanks!
June 17th, 2006 at 5:53 pm
Fuflball, Ghana, Israel
Als ich heute das Ende des Spiels Ghana - Tschechien im Fernsehen beobachtete, sprang mir unmittelbar nach Spielende die israelische Fahne ins Auge, mit der einer der Spieler die Siegesrunde drehte. Aussie-Dave hat einmal wieder seine nicht zu ¸berbi…
June 17th, 2006 at 7:42 pm
I caught that in the post-match celebrations!
June 18th, 2006 at 1:10 am
I’d say that playing for Hapoel Tel Aviv counts as a sign of solidarity, but what do I know…
June 18th, 2006 at 12:32 pm
One day the bored cup will be done and we’ll be done reading about such trivia. It is a nice game to play, but watching it ranks up there with the watching the paint peel.
June 18th, 2006 at 3:10 pm
So I guess it ranks better than Baseball then..
June 19th, 2006 at 12:01 pm
I have read about arabs media reaction- unblievable!
some said that Jews paid him
other that jews control the african players market and make them salut everymorining to the israeli flag.
and one newspaper in Egypt even said that he is a mossad agent..
go figure
June 19th, 2006 at 8:54 pm
What I would like to say is let them (arab countries) think hardly about this case. Let them mad and crazy, because this kind of nations are full of hate and madness.
December 4th, 2006 at 5:32 pm
Before the real reason why he waved the Israeli flag became known, a possible explanation could have been that he’s Jewish. But oh yeah, I forgot, you can’t be black and Jewish, what was I thinking.
November 2nd, 2007 at 11:59 am
that had to be a little embarassing for him. maybe he was dared to do it. i can’t answer for him. he had his reasons for doing it.