Ghana Soccer Magick Backfires

I'm not a big believer in the idea that if you do a spell wrong, the result is some sort of "backfire" or "slingshot effect" or whatever it is folks feel like calling it on any particular day. In my experience the reality is that magick either works or it doesn't, and when you make a mistake the most likely outcome is that nothing at all happens.

Now there are a couple of exceptions to this rule. The first is the "careful what you wish for" problem, in which you put together a charge to the spirit that gets fulfilled literally but which either doesn't produce the result you really wanted or accomplishes it in an indesirable way. Another is when you cast a spell without really considering the overall consequences of the desired result. This seems to be what happened when players on Ghana's soccer team tried using magick to get ahead. The problem was rather than using it to improve their team's prospects, they wound up casting spells against one another.

The coach did not name any specific players in that part of the report and the GFA is refusing to comment on the matter, saying it does not discuss any issues arising from leaked documents.

"It has always happened, but players have used it to protect themselves and normally in search of luck," Sarfo Gyami, who was a member of the Ghana side at the 1992 Nations Cup, told BBC Sport.

"I have never heard of a situation when players have used it against their own colleagues. That is a very bad situation."

Needless to say, this also did not work out well for the team, which lost to Zambia in the Africa Nations Cup tournament. Unfortunately, the attitude on display is all too common in Africa. I keep reading about cases where Africans who find some member of their community becoming prosperous don't use magick to become properous themselves, but rather get together all the money they can and hire a sorcerer to curse the properous individual. This doesn't benefit these poorer members of the community in any way, but rather is just intended to end somebody else's good fortune out of spite. To my way of thinking that's a misuse of magical power all around.