Africa has great chance of winning World Cup - Abedi Pele
By Mike Collett
JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - An African country has a great chance of winning the first World Cup to be played on the continent next year, according to former Ghana international Abedi Pele.
The 44-year-old Pele, one of Africa's greatest players, is now a member of FIFA's Football Committee and the technical committee which has been evaluating play at the Confederations Cup.
He told a media briefing on Tuesday that four African teams could reach the quarter-finals, two could make the last four and one could get to the final.
No African team has progressed beyond the last eight in a World Cup, but the three-times African Footballer of the Year said they would never have a better chance of winning football's ultimate prize than in South Africa next year.
Pele, a Champions League winner with Marseille in 1993, said: "African teams are coming to this African World Cup to showcase their talent and this is our best chance of getting close to the trophy itself.
"In the history of the World Cup only Brazil has won it outside their own continent, in Sweden in 1958 and in Japan in 2002.
"But here in Africa we will definitely have one team that will go far -- and when I say go far I mean as far as getting the trophy. When I say this people laugh, but I believe it."
One Year Later
A year after militants laid siege to Mumbai, the country still remains very vulnerable. Full Article | Full Coverage
Liberhan Commission Report
The government published a long awaited report, recently leaked, accusing BJP leaders of a role in the 1992 destruction of the Babri mosque in Ayodhya. Full Article
