African talent hidden story in World Cup

While underdogs have done surprisingly well in the football World Cup, the countries in the semi-finals were all European.

I wanted to see Asian countries - South Korea and Japan - go through. But you don't really hear about many top Asian players, so I wasn't too surprised or disappointed overall.

I also wanted to see African nations - Morocco, Tunisia, Nigeria, Senegal and Egypt - advance. However, none did.

Pele famously predicted in 1977 that an African nation would win the Cup by 2000. Given the continent's passion for football and the millions of kids who grow up playing the sport, it wasn't an unreasonable bet. However, it hasn't happened.

The furthest African teams have gone is to the quarter-finals: Cameroon in 1990, Senegal in 2002, and Ghana in 2010.

Sadly, for this World Cup, Africa has put on its worst display in 36 years, with no side from the continent in the knockout stage for the first time since 1982.

When we scan through the European teams, however, 83 out of 230 players in 10 European countries (France, Switzerland, England, Portugal, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, Spain, Germany, Belgium) are immigrants, many of whose families recently emigrated from African countries.

Look at the ratio of immigrants in the country versus on the national football team. While only 6.8 percent of France's population are recent migrants in origin, a whopping 78.3 percent of the national team members are immigrants.

The story is similar for England and Belgium.

If African migrants in European teams are faring so well, why aren't African teams doing well?

Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski discussed in their book, Soccernomics: "To win at sports, you need to find, develop and nurture talent. Doing that requires money, know-how, and some kind of administrative infrastructure. Few African countries have any."

While it is true that African countries may not offer as many high-quality academies and national leagues as in Europe, Africa has produced some of Europe's biggest stars in recent years, including Cameroon's Samuel Eto'o, Ivory Coast's Didier Drogba, and Egypt's Mo Salah.

Just as many of the players in top European national teams are of African descent, many of the players of top African national teams are of European club "descent" (ie, they play in European club leagues).

Another school of thought, as evidenced by the Ghanaian and Nigerian players boycotting training over bonus disputes in the 2014 World Cup, is that African teams are not paid enough.

Why work so hard and take the risk of going through a year-long injury for very little money, particularly if one's European club team pays outrageously more?

Perhaps until questions around pay by African national teams - among other issues - are resolved, dreams of an African nation winning the World Cup will remain elusive.

is a former investment banker,

development consultant in training and global citizen