( CNN ) -- In Eritrea , as in most of east Africa , football -- or soccer -- is a passion . But so dire is its economic and political situation that its best players , in fact the whole national team , defected in 2009 while at a tournament in Kenya . A leaked U.S. diplomatic cable published by WikiLeaks uses `` the beautiful game '' to describe an ever uglier situation in this small but strategically important state in the Horn of Africa . In a dispatch from December 2009 , then-Ambassador Ronald McMullen wrote : `` Many dusty streets in Asmara are filled with urchins kicking an old sock stuffed with rags back and forth between goals made of piled stones . Senior government and party officials are avid fans of the British Premier League and sometimes leave official functions early to catch key matches . '' As for the missing national team , he writes : `` Only the coach and an escorting colonel reportedly returned to Eritrea . ( One wonders why , given their likely fate . ) '' The government denied any players had gone missing . Eritrea has only known one leader since winning independence from Ethiopia in 1993 - Isaias Afwerki . And the cables assert that his mercurial and dictatorial ways are largely to blame for the country 's parlous state . In its short life , Eritrea has been involved in a ruinous border war with Ethiopia that cost thousands of lives , and is regularly accused by Western governments and the United Nations of supplying arms to Islamic militants in Somalia -- a charge raised by the ambassador with Eritrean officials . One cable quotes a leading businessman as saying Isaias is mentally ill : `` The worse things get , the more he tries to take direct control -- it does n't work . '' Another cable from earlier in 2009 says bluntly : `` The country 's unhinged dictator remains cruel and defiant . '' `` The regime is facing mounting international pressure for years of malign behavior in the neighborhood . Human rights abuses are commonplace and most young Eritreans , along with the professional class , dream of fleeing the country , even to squalid refugee camps in Ethiopia or Sudan , '' according to another dispatch . According to the cables , the government 's stock answer was to blame America `` and its puppet Ethiopia '' for all its troubles , with President Isaias at one point claiming that the CIA was trying to lure Eritrea 's youth abroad . There was apparently a brief initiative to improve relations soon after President Barack Obama 's election , with Ambassador McMullen describing an unusual picnic he attended at the invitation of a senior Eritrean official . `` Lunch was served in a rocky gulch beneath a thorny acacia tree . The ambassador and his wife were treated to grilled sheep innards served with honey and chili sauce ( but no silverware ) , washed down with a sour , semi-fermented traditional drink called , aptly , `` sewa . '' But Eritrea 's alleged support for the Shabab militia - an affiliate of al Qaeda - did n't help matters . One cable quotes the ambassador as telling Eritrean officials : `` Eritrean support for Somali extremists obviates closer ties and Eritrea will be held accountable for any al-Shabaab attack on the United States . '' `` How do you think we would react to a major al-Shabaab terrorist attack against the United States ? '' the ambassador asked . `` This seems to have driven home the point to our Eritrean interlocutors . '' Another cable scoffs at the idea that mining gold will come to Eritrea 's rescue , describing recently-discovered seams as like `` Neapolitan ice cream , with a thin layer of gold atop thicker layers of copper and zinc . '' In a country whose exports were worth just $ 14 million in 2008 , even that might help . But the ambassador concludes : `` In short , there is no help on the immediate horizon for Eritrea 's faltering economy . '' One leaked cable also described tensions within the military , with a conference of colonels deteriorating into a serious row . `` The bone of contention ? Perceived differences in the quality of the villas ( often confiscated from the original owners ) given to the colonels by the regime to maintain their allegiance , '' the cable said . However , the cables suggest President Isaias may be in power for some time to come . One from November 2009 concluded : `` Isaias is clever , very good at operational security , and two decades younger than Mugabe , '' -- the Zimbabwean president who has been in power for thirty years . `` While many in Eritrea long for change , few are in a position to effect it , '' it said . As for the Eritrean people , the cables suggest that their long fight for independence has made them resilient . `` Eritreans remain fiercely patriotic , '' it said . `` In the face of deprivation and oppression , the time-tested best practice is to shut up , hunker down , and pray for rain . ''
Cable : Key government officials are avid fans of British Premier League games . The cables blame country 's leader for its parlous performance . Some even say that it blames president for its woes . The president may be in jail for sometime to recover , the cables say .