By George Nyabuga

The World Cup trophy finally made it to Kenya, and for those who saw it, it was such a nostalgic and fervent moment. To many football and sport fans, this is the ultimate trophy – a celebration of the best in football.

A semiotic analysis of the trophy though reveals a deeper meaning. The reading of that 18-carat, 36.8cm, 6.175kg gold trophy reveals richness in meaning given the importance of sport. For one, the trophy symbolises excellence and unity amid competition.

It reveals the dream of making it to the pinnacle of one of the greatest sports. It also means that amid competition, there ought to be fair play, adherence to rules, and acknowledgement that there is always a winner and a loser in any competition, and that to lose, although this is not always gracious, is part of life.

As the Coca Cola marketing director for East and Central Africa, Mr Roger Gauntlett, said on Friday when unveiling the trophy to the Press, the arrival of the icon represented the "ultimate dream and spirit for the African people". Of course not only for Africans but also those around the world who are in love with the beautiful game that is, unfortunately, now highly commercialised. Commercialisation aside, however, as we enjoy the trophy, the dream that one day that ultimate football prize will not just pass through Kenya but that Harambee Stars, the national team, would lift it continues.

That dream may be farfetched, but such is the passion for football that people are oftentimes unwilling to let their hopes ebb away, even in the battle against goliathic teams.

Although the world has gone through a lot since the World Cup tournament was first played in 1930, the event is still highly revered, and football has become a symbol of unity and peace, even though at times its reputation is marred by violence and racism.

Granted, as Bob Munro, the founder and chairman of Mathare Youth Sports Association, the owners of top Kenyan club Mathare United, argues in an article, Sport for Peace and Reconciliation: Young Peacemakers in the Kakuma Refugee Camp and Mathare Slums in Kenya, sport has the potential and power to engender and maintain peace.

Focusing on the ethnic tensions in Kenya, for example, Munro posits that "no other social activity has the same potential and power as ethnically-diverse team sports ... in reducing ethnic prejudices and tensions, promoting reconciliation and maintaining peace".

Although such arguments are not new, the empirical study and evidence generated from the case studies reveal the potential of sport given ethnic tensions and violence that often visit cosmopolitan areas like Mathare. After all talent does not know tribe.

The success of Mathare United, and indeed the just crowned Kenyan Premier League champions Sofapaka and others, demonstrates what sport can achieve in a polarised country.

Evidently, numerous sports like athletics have helped bond communities, obscuring ethnic differences and animosity.

A casual observation of Kenyans cheering their athletes, for example, at the Olympics, shows what potential and power sport has over ethnic bigotry. For example, even amid post-election violence and attendant consequences upon ethnic tolerance and cohesion, people did not care about the ethnic backgrounds of Kenya’s Olympic or other sporting heroes. That is the uniting power of sport.

And maybe that is the message President Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga sought to convey as they admired that golden trophy.

Politics was almost forgotten as they displayed the trophy. Maybe that unity would help the leaders invest more in sport.

Not only in monetary, but also political investments in terms of policies meant to advance sport.

That done, the spirit of the World Cup, and indeed other trophies and tournaments, would have been realised.