Stealing the ball
Who is the black John Kennedy? A Brazilian footballer.
SPORTS
The meanings of Heath Streak
Zimbabwean cricketing legend Heath Streak’s career mirrors many of the unresolved tensions of race and class in Zimbabwe. Yet few white Zimbabwean sporting figures are able to stir interest and conversation across the nation’s many divides.
The cricketing phenomenon
The South African bowler, Kagiso Rabada, is arguably one of the best to play test cricket, and could retire as South Africa’s highest wicket-taker if the country plays more red-ball cricket.
The ways of South Africa’s cricket establishment
In South African cricket, almost three decades after white rule ended, “local talent” means “local white talent,” even if you’re the national team captain.
Everything the government does
On the South African Department of Tourism's pending sponsorship deal with Premier League football club, Tottenham Hotspur.
After we have grown too tired of jumping
The Ghanaian game, Ampe, is an education in Blackness and womanhood.
The value of holding on as we imagine an escape
As Iran withstands one of its greatest existential challenges, its men's national team would be forced to carry the weight of a nation’s despair on the field.
Belonging is not a sport
The reality of any society, any nation, and of our world, is much messier than picking a soccer team.
A pivot towards Africa
The positive reactions of Africans to Morocco’s performance at the World Cup are not outliers. Sport has often challenged outsiders' view of Africa's regions as disparate and disconnected.
The (African) Arab Cup
Morocco’s World Cup heroics are forging a new, dissident Third-World solidarity, reflecting the multifaceted nature of Moroccan identity itself: simultaneously Arab, African, and Amazigh.
Qatar’s vuvuzela
The 2022 Men’s World Football Cup is in its knockout stages, so the Africa Is a Country podcast catches up with some of the most exciting events so far in the tournament.
There is a World Cup
The 22nd FIFA Men’s World Cup, held in Qatar, is getting political. This week on the AIAC podcast, we discuss the sport and the politics with Tony Karon and Sean Jacobs.
The remarkable revival of Ugandan football
Uganda has never qualified for the World Cup, but at a continental level it is making a comeback. So is its club football.
In sun and shadow
On the last episode of our sports and music series on Africa Is a Country Radio, we visit with Sean Jacobs and Tony Karon of the Eleven Named People podcast to preview the 2022 men's World Cup football tournament.
It takes a team to raise an athlete
Race, class and the story of struggle and sacrifice in the making of South Africa’s next generation of track and field athletes.
Soccer capitalism
Soccer academies in Africa sprang from European club interventions with varied success, but, as examples in Ghana prove, they can be sites of local, entrepreneurial spirit.
The art of football
Why should people be invested in a football game in a bubble called the art world? “Exhibition Match,” a multifaceted installation, explores responses to this question.
Not so quiet resilience
David Samaai was the first black (and coloured) South African to play at Wimbledon in 1949. He was 21 years old. He did so before the Americans, Althea Gibson and Arthur Ashe.
Silencing the past of Egyptian football
The 10th anniversary of the tragedy at Port Said passed without much notice in Egypt. Have Egyptians forgotten, or are they just trying to move on?
There’s a metaphor in there somewhere
Thoughts on the conclusion of the 2021 African Cup of Nations.