Africa: Where Teens Watch Porn

Malawians are learning that all press might not be good press, but might be great blog fodder.

Last week the head of the Malawian Referee's Association failed to count properly and mistakenly awarded a cup final to a team before they had technically won.

Now comes porn.

The Malawian U-17 manager Patrick Kulemeka was fired for allowing his players to watch pornographic movies in their hotel rooms last March during the CAF Youth Championship in Algeria (and if anyone can ID the animal in the Algerian shirt, help us out).

Here's our question: Couldn't it have just been the National Geographic channel? And how would they know the difference?

What? You thought the same thing. We just have the temerity to say it, or maybe it's audacity.

Kulemeka was defiant in his defense claiming: “I accept the decision. That’s fine with me. I think I have sacrificed a lot as a team manager for the Under-17. We part in good ways and I wish the team all the best."

Oh wait, actually that seems to be the exact opposite of defiance, more like resignation. And that's a bit strange because, given what little detail there is in the The Daily Times' piece, it seems Kulemeka kind of got the shaft on this one.

First, apparently the executive committee that made the decision didn't even hear his side of the story. Second, Kulemaka intimates that this was going on in players' rooms well after they should have been asleep. And he asks, resonably, “I really don’t know how they expected me to go around the players’ rooms at 2am checking if they are watching pornographic movies,” Third, aren't the smut-loving Algerians partially to blame, what with their ubiquitous porn and all?

If there's any takeaway from this, we're not sure what it is. Other than maybe The Daily Times could use better fact checkers. They reported: "The issue of the players spending more time watching pornographic movies was raised just before the Under-17 played their third place game against Gambia."

Malawi's third place match, which they lost, was against Burkina Faso. At least that's what we're going to assume from this CAF report here.

That match recap is suggested reading if only for nuggets like: "The closest they came to annexing the ultimate was a decade ago in Botswana." We think that means Burkina Faso finished second sometime in the Nineties.

Malawi had actually been eliminated a week before the semis but advanced after Niger was disqualified for using overage players—hey, did we just bury a lede?

So really, we're going to blame this whole thing on Niger. If they don't run out their own Danny Almonte, Malawi is eliminated and the players are back home long before they ever have the chance to watch porn and get their coach canned.

Oh Patrick Kulemeka, we're sorry the fates hate you so much.