3rd July, 2010
Ghanaian President John Atta-Mills was supported by nine other African heads of state who saw his team’s white knuckle exit from the soccer World Cup on Friday.
The leaders gathered during a break in the 38th summit of the Economic Community of West African States in island country Cape Verde, their eyes riveted to a giant screen for the quarter-final battle with Uruguay.
With scores level at 1-1 the match failed to yield a winner after extra time and a penalty shoot-out handed the match to Uruguay 4-2, leaving the first World Cup on African soil without a team from the continent in the semi-final.
The loss was followed by a long silence in the large hall of a hotel where the ten leaders were passionately following the match. In a sombre mood, the dejected heads of state left immediately afterwards without comment to reporters outside, who had been trying to follow the match via the internet on their computers.
