OOC Entry 90 - EVE is Nigeria

I am not a football follower. I am not a follower of sports at all. But I do listen to BBC World Service a lot and today there was a piece of football news that made their headlines.

Two Nigerian football teams were supposed to go into a playoff round for promotion in the league, and they were tied as far as points were concerned. The only way to ensure their promotion was to get above everyone else in goal difference.

They decided to make that goal difference count by playing their matches 79-0 and 67-0.

I really had to laugh at this. The whole thing is just so EVE style. Such blatant match fixing (metagame) and then even the names of the teams: Plateau United Feeders and Police Machine.

The whole thing can not even be called just match fixing anymore, it is an absolute and utter trolling action. The vast majority of those goals were also scored in the second half, averaging one goal every 35 seconds.

Anybody remember the finals of Alliance Tournament IX .

In an interview I heard on BBC World they asked a Nigerian Football Federation official how this was even possible and he was talking about how corruption was so endemic to Nigeria and money is ruling everything. That this blatant action was just a sign of how much people don't give a damn about appearances anymore and just do whatever they (think they) can get away with.

Everyone who has been online for some time is of course familiar with the so called Nigerian Scam. Organized crime gangs from Nigeria are a major problem around the continent. Especially South Africa. Nigerian Mercenaries are often mentioned as the most ruthlessly opportunistic guns-for-hire you can get in Africa.*

On the positive side, Nigerian people are also generally seen as very diligent and determined workers who will first plan things well before they put their operations in motion. They are typically avid traders, very flexible and adaptive and often very community minded. (I guess those attitudes also work out well for the criminals)

For example, within the local African Immigrant Community of the city I live in, one Nigerian woman set up a network of time-exchange child care for mothers who can not afford to put their children in creches. She spent two years working the whole thing out and then she just implemented a system within a few weeks where dozens of mothers keep in touch with each-other and synchronise their schedules so that they always have someone somewhere close-by who can look after their children and they will do it for another the next time.

The woman who set it all up described it herself as "A very Nigerian way of doing things. Fixing a problem in the most effective way after thinking and planning for a long time."

Does all that not sound really familiar?

I personally have come to the conclusion that EVE is the Nigeria among the MMOs.

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P.S. No Nigerians or EVE players were hurt for the production of this post.

P.P.S. I neither want to stereotypically portray either Nigerians or EVE players in a negative (or stereotypically positive) way. I just want to point at some similarities when looking at both groups in a very generalised picture.

* I could put source material here but then the text would be full of links. Just google terms like 'Nigerian Organised Crime in Africa' and 'Nigerian Mercenaries' and you will find enough.