The beautiful game’s ugly secret
The #MeToo movement exposed abuses across industries, yet men’s football remains resistant to accountability, protecting predators and sidelining survivors.
SPORTS
The freedom to move
Hiking as Kenyans in Kenya is pathbreaking, both literally and metaphorically.
The mirage of progress in women’s football
Select success stories obscure the intentional underdevelopment of women’s football in Africa.
Rooting for everybody black
The Olympics, with its provocative patriotism, are the perfect forum for using a broader diasporic focus to push back against hypernationalism.
Rolling with the punches
Removed from the facts, the firestorm around Algerian boxer Imane Khelif is the latest attempt by the right-wing in the West to find fodder for its culture war.
When a star dies
On the tragic death of 24-year-old marathon record holder Kelvin Kiptum.
Who are the Olympics for?
Beneath the image of togetherness, the world’s biggest athletic spectacle is still beset by discrimination and exclusion.
Chasing shadows
A docuseries about the Springbok rugby team invites us to examine the enduring legacy of Rainbowism in South Africa.
Taking a stand
The CAF Champions League final and the politics of North-African football ultras.
The two religions of Tanzania
Dar Es Salaam’s Kariakoo derby is fast becoming the continent’s biggest.
Post-Afcon blues
Who else sorely misses the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations? Re-live the excitement from the stands in a short video by the AIAC team.
Allez Les Grenadières
When Haiti’s national women’s team take to the field for ninety minutes, they allow the Haitian people to dream.
From Salt River to the sea
When the the Palestinian Men’s National Team played an exhibition match in Cape Town, South Africa, it might as well have been a home game.
Filling in the gaps in the study of African sports
To celebrate 20 years of research on sports in Africa, the SportsAfrica network will publish a series of monthly articles on Africa Is a Country drawing on their members’ research.
Preenchendo as lacunas no estudo do esporte africano
Para celebrar 20 anos de pesquisa sobre esportes na África, a rede SportsAfrica irá publicar uma série de artigos mensais no Africa Is a Country, baseando-se nas pesquisas de seus membros.
La CAN et la politique des affects
La CAN de cette année en Côte d'Ivoire a montré que ce n'est pas seulement la politique du football qui compte, mais aussi la politique de l'ambiance.
The affective politics of AFCON
This year’s AFCON in Côte d'Ivoire showed that it’s not just the politics of the football that matters, but the politics of the vibe as well.
The league of nations
If South Africa’s Premier Soccer league matters, it is because it’s the country’s most successful pan-Africanist project.
Nigeria’s elephants in the room
For Nigeria to return to the peak of African football, it needs deeper introspection about how the country functions today.
A forgotten relic
Just two weeks on from Les Elephants greatest ever triumph, the Ivorian women’s national team is at its lowest point.