Since the 1970s, African women’s football has significantly grown, succeeded, and inspired. Women were always playing, winning, and emerging, but not much was being recorded. Names and stories of Perpetua Nkwocha, Mercy Akide, or Florence Omagbemi are underreported in world football, and yet they are continental icons.

The question now is: what does it mean to win and shine if your stories are not being preserved? Digital platforms, historical timelines and institutional materials have a male-centric focus that celebrate African stars such as Didier Drogba, Samuel Eto’o or George Weah who rightfully deserve their place in the Hall of Fame of African football history. But we have a responsibility to look at what’s being erased in our collective memory and give tribute to those who built the game and who are often forgotten. As the British sociologist, Stuart Hall stated “Power works through classification—through what is named and what is being invisible”

The spotlight never shines on its own. The direction of its beam is a construct of decades of practices, habits, and thoughts that normalize erasure of other stories, notably of African women’s football, where memory is fragmented and scattered. Erasure is the result of policies that intentionally choose what to remember, what to celebrate, and what stories to tell.

Yet, the Women’s African Cup of Nations (Wafcon) is a central scene where athletes may reshape social identities, rethink what it means to belong, and reimagine football in the public space. Moreover, the Wafcon now unfolds on a global stage where the different agendas of global governing bodies conflict through the hosting of simultaneous international tournaments that overlap one another  — The 2025 FIFA Club World Cup, the 2025 UEFA Women’s Euro, and the 2025 CONCACAF Gold Cup are all competing for the footballing world’s attention.

In the midst of the struggle for visibility, political influence, and accumulation of economic capital, CAF with Wafcon needs to find its place or face erasure. They need to compete to be at the center of mass spectatorship or they will be condemned to the periphery. And the consequences of that are significant. With the absence of archival materials, there are no foundations for alternative narratives that can engage with a global audience, no cultural legitimacy for local spectators, and no platform on which long-term investment can be built.

According to Daniel Fabre, a French ethnologist, archiving is a social practice. A process through which societies decide to preserve what is “interesting” and what is not. In doing so, the archives become a space where a society tells its own story, and creates a shared “collective biography.” When it comes to football, the archives play a central role in narratives and legacy. They shape how the game is socially constructed, culturally embedded, and collectively remembered.

However, questions arise about the preservation of archives, specifically who owns the narrative and who decides what gets preserved and what does not. Archiving is power that shapes legacy and tells story. Memory matters and is the starting point of cultural legitimacy. With digitalization, content increases. But the medium is fragile. Lacking an institutional project of archiving, the Women’s African Cup of Nations is exposed as being less relevant, not yet legitimate, or worse, instrumentalized. The stories of African Women’s football live on servers that crash, timelines that disappear, and posts that get lost in the algorithm.

African governing bodies need an institutional project that encompasses both physical and digital infrastructure to preserve the work these women are creating now. Preserving African football memory is strategic and critical to owning the narrative and being culturally rooted to build a meaningful legacy.

For instance, before the 2022 Wafcon, CAF launched a social media initiative entitled “It’s time is now” with a re-branded Instagram, TikTok, and X profile. Punchy content was regularly streamed; however, two years later, CAF failed to stage the 2024 Wafcon on time and with no reasonable explanation. While we have seen FIFA collect and preserve its archive on an app named FIFA+—where you can watch full matches as far back as the 1954 FIFA World Cup—CAF has done little to value or treasure the Wafcons of the 1990s and the people who put this tournament on the map.

African women’s football also shapes shifting social identity. Players construct fresh belongings by unlocking new routes of success and new roles in the community that reinvent traditional expectations. The Wafcon garners respectability on the field, not in fulfilling patriarchal injunctions. An athlete can belong to her family not in being a good daughter or a good mother but by being a provider, a symbol of pride, and a cultural face in her community. Players such as Asisat Oshoala, Barbra Banda, or Rasheedat Ajibade are role models, not because they are women who succeeded against all odds or begged for a place in the game. Their presence alone is an obvious and compelling statement. They inspire through their work ethic and professional commitment.

The tournament also reflects the dynamics of mobility through football, and mobility starts within the country, from small towns to major urban centers. You can choose to win where you are born or go abroad in search of new horizons. The development of Moroccan football reflects both local and international dynamics. Domestically, players such as Nouhaila Benzina and Fatima Tagnaout contribute to the Rabat-based club l’AS FAR, while abroad, Ghizlaine Chebbak, Rosella Ayane, and Ibtissam Jraidi make their mark in Spain, England, and Saudi Arabia, respectively.

The policy of articulating local talent and capitalizing on the diaspora is a common thread in the development of Moroccan football for men and women. It bridges the local and the global and introduces transnational belonging into the African game. Asisat Oshoala and Ibtissam Jraidi set the example by tracing new routes for other players to thrive and succeed elsewhere, whether it is in the Middle East or in East Asia. These pathways decenter the European gaze that presupposes that only destinations in the West are guarantors of success. These players build bridges between Africa and Asia that redefine what and where success may be found.

African football needs to confront how erasure has shaped the past in women’s football, how players are actively building its current memory, and how identifying the new is reshaping boundaries. That is not done by romanticizing the struggle or pandering to heroism. We need to rethink football at the core of public life, where governing bodies, brands, sponsors, and public authorities are responsible for building infrastructure that narrates, collects, and designs the future of women’s football on African terms locally, but also to establish its status on a global stage.

This year’s Wafcon tournament in Morocco is a test case—an opportunity to begin a cultural reinvention of the game and the stories it tells.