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.
SPORTS
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.
The African Cup of Nations is our World Cup
Reflecting on the 2022 edition of the African Cup of nations, and the successes of small countries.
Tweeting apartheid sport
What if the social media conditions of 2021 existed in 1981? A group of New Zealand writers tweeted the damned 1981 Springbok rugby tour as if it was happening now.
AFCON is decolonization
On this episode of AIAC Talk, Will Shoki and Sean Jacobs discuss the history and politics of the African Cup of Nations football tournament.
Zimbabwe’s second innings
In November 2017, Robert Mugabe was toppled in a coup. Amid this epochal change, life—and cricket—simply went on for Zimbabweans, who are still in search of a better future.
Beyond the boundary
South African cricket is currently the subject of TRC-style hearings into the racism and nepotism in the game. It makes for riveting TV, but focuses too much on individual instances of racism and discrimination.
Disentangling memory from truth
In the collective consciousness of global football, Zaire and Haiti—which both qualified for the 1974 World Cup—are remembered for their dismal performance. But is this legacy justified?