G for Goal as World Cup beats G8, G20 summits (News Feature)

By Ben Nimmo and Chris Cermak Jun 27, 2010, 19:47 GMT

Toronto - Summit? What Summit? The World Cup may be thousands of kilometres away in South Africa, but world leaders meeting in Toronto were at hard work this weekend keeping their priorities straight.

With eight of the Group of 20 (G20) leading developed and developing economies playing in the knock-out stages while the power bloc's leaders met in Canada, diplomats were under no illusions as to which event had captured their masters' attention.

'So far, it's South Africa 1, Canada 0,' one European official told the German Press Agency dpa drily as the summit press centre erupted with goal celebrations, temporarily drowning the sound of a senior diplomat's briefing.

US President Barack Obama - normally such a basketball fan that the organisers of last year's Group of Eight (G8) summit in Italy built a basketball court outside his accommodation - and his advisers found it impossible to keep their minds on saving the world economy as the US team came to grips with Ghana.

'How much time is left?' asked White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, as he walked into the room at Obama's hotel in Toronto, a pool report said.

'Five minutes,' Obama replied. 'It's nerve-wracking.'

The world's most powerful man was not destined to see a happy ending, as a late Ghana goal ended the US dream.

But he was not alone. The leaders of Australia, France, Italy and South Africa all arrived in Canada knowing that their teams had already been knocked out of the greatest sporting show on Earth.

On Saturday, South Korea's President Lee Myung Bak joined the losers' club as his country went out at the feet of Uruguay.

And on Sunday, Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel put the world's most powerful people on hold for 45 minutes as they abandoned a G20 working session to watch Germany hammer England 4-1.

'I hope the other leaders will forgive us for not being there in the second half,' Merkel said after the game.

Their absence was certainly a breach of normal summit etiquette - although not as much as Cameron's pre-match warning that he might 'wrestle Merkel to the ground' if the game went to penalties.

But Brazilian President Luis Inacio Lula Da Silva also made his priorities clear when he refused to depart for the summit until Brazil's pool game against Portugal was over. Lula ultimately skipped the summit to deal with the aftermath of disastrous flooding at home.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon also swore to leave the G20 talks to watch his country play Argentina late on Sunday, or to demand SMS updates if that proved impossible.

And the President of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso, almost joined the absentee list as he stepped up to support his native Portugal in a break in Friday's Group of Eight (G8) summit.

'I was extremely happy, because it ended 2 minutes before the reception of the G8,' he told the German Press Agency dpa.

If one of the summit's lessons was that even the best politicians sometimes prefer sport to politics, another was clearly that economic power is no guarantee of sporting prowess.

By Sunday afternoon, just two of the G8 nations - Germany and Japan - were still in the World Cup hunt.

But arguably the most important lesson was that, even in an age of economic crisis and great-power rivalry, sport has lost none of its ability to bridge the gaps between nations.

Obama and Ghanaian President John Atta Mills agreed to exchange football jerseys after the game.

Obama and Cameron swapped bottles of beer in honour of their countries' earlier 1-1 draw. While they exchanged banter on the British habit of drinking the national brew at room temperature, there was no talk of Cameron wrestling Obama to the ground.

Lee put aside his country's history of Japanese occupation, pledging to support his Asian neighbour on Tuesday against Paraguay.

And even the leaders of the world's fiercest footballing rivals, Merkel and Cameron, stood out for their sportsmanlike conduct as Germany gave England a four-goal scoring masterclass.

Cameron 'congratulated us, of course: it was a very good sporting atmosphere,' Merkel said after the game.