AfricaIs aCountry

Football Referee of the Year

Africa Is a Country Podcast
African Five-a-Side Podcast

Football Referee of the Year

By
Tom Devriendt

My knowledge of European club football doesn’t stretch much further beyond what gets posted here on Football is a Country and the odd link I come across on our Twitter feed (blame my wary interest on the historical underperformance of Belgian teams* and a time-consuming preference for all things music) so I was surprised to read Gabonese referee Jérôme Efong Nzolo was voted Referee of the Year by Belgian football players in this year’s Jupiler Pro League (that’s Belgium’s national competition). Nzolo was born in Bitam in 1974, came to Belgium to study for electromechanical engineer back in 1995, worked for some years in a car factory, later became a teacher and started refereeing in the national competition in 2000. National TV put the spotlight on him during his first top match some years ago. This year’s election as referee of the year isn’t his first time: he previously won in 2007, 2008 and 2009. Is the presence of referees of African descent still as rare in professional European club football as I believe it is, or should I read the footy pages more?

* This, no doubt, will change when the Belgian Red Devils manage to qualify for Brazil 2014 and go on to win the World Cup. That’s how it goes.

Further Reading

Progress is exhausting

Pedro Pinho’s latest film follows a Portuguese engineer in Guinea-Bissau, exposing how empire survives through bureaucracy, intimacy, and the language of “development.”

The rubble of empire

Built by Italian Fascists in 1928, Mogadishu Cathedral was meant to symbolize “peaceful conquest.” Today its ruins force Somalis to confront the uneasy afterlife of colonial power and religious authority.

Atayese

Honored in Yorubaland as “one who repairs the world,” Jesse Jackson’s life bridged civil rights, pan-Africanism, empire, and contradiction—leaving behind a legacy as expansive as it was imperfect.

Bread or Messi?

Angola’s golden jubilee culminated in a multimillion-dollar match against Argentina. The price tag—and the secrecy around it—divided a nation already grappling with inequality.

Visiting Ngara

A redevelopment project in Nairobi’s Ngara district promises revival—but raises deeper questions about capital, memory, and who has the right to shape the city.

Gen Z’s electoral dilemma

Long dismissed as apathetic, Kenya’s youth forced a rupture in 2024. As the 2027 election approaches, their challenge is turning digital rebellion and street protest into political power.

A world reimagined in Black

By placing Kwame Nkrumah at the center of a global Black political network, Howard W. French reveals how the promise of pan-African emancipation was narrowed—and what its failure still costs Africa and the diaspora.

Securing Nigeria

Nigeria’s insecurity cannot be solved by foreign airstrikes or a failing state, but by rebuilding democratic, community-rooted systems of collective self-defense.