Viewers watching the ITV preview of the Uruguay - Ghana match at the World Cup got to hear an unusual semi-technical explanation of the difficulties of broadcasting live from Accra, Ghana's capital. Having witnessed the success of the Black Stars at this year's edition and given the early exit of the overpaid and under-motivated Three Lions, the ITV team wanted to get a closer look at the enthusiasm in the Ghanaian capital.They discovered that it was not going to be so easy to get a satellite contact with a hastily despatched reporter so apparently they had to transport different parts of the equipment from neighbouring countries such as the Cote d'Ivoire to create some sort of mobile outside broadcasting satellite unit.

This unplanned insight on the logistical problems of reporting from the West of Africa would have been an eye opener as to how low on the priority list for reporting some African countries might be. This brought back memories of our Brussels discussions about what could possibly incentivise more reporting of the day to day news in certain areas of the globe. Cue back to Marcel Desailly in the ITV studios. Accra born Desailly won the world cup wearing the shirt of his adopted second country but his heart still beats very strongly for the black stars. He was moved by the first images of a jubilant Ghanaian crowd in Accra's Oxford Street as the people assembled in an African emulation of Berlin's 5 mile crowd four years ago.When the programme returned to the studio Desailly's first words were to the effect of "this is an excellent advert for the country - peaceful, happy, people dancing in safe streets. That's what football can do to you."

One of the books on my bedside table right now is a book called Soccernomics. In this book the authors try to explain statistically why the larger, economically wealthy countries have a better chance of dominating even in the world of sport. In short it is not just 11 v 11 on the pitch - it is the odds of a larger nation with better facilities and better chances of picking out 11 phenomenal players. Apparently the statistics confirm this (they also confirm that England's destiny is that of a middle range national team but that is another story). What soccernomics does not do is describe the potential beneficial effect of events like the World Cup to the morale of a nation (and sometimes a continent).

We have witnessed it with the surge of interest in the USA this year, we have witnessed the feel good factor with the All Whites of New Zealand returning to the antipodal end of the world as heroes after their undefeated run at the World Cup. But there can be no more poignant a moment as when the ITV studio passed the mic on to the reporter in Oxford Street Ghana and for a few minutes the world got a window onto a scene ofa happy, jubilant and proud country that seemed to want to yell that it has many more stories to tell about itself (and its continent) than those that we are used to hearing every other day.

Sing! Sing! Africa.