South Africa’s fatigued and narcissistic nation-building discourse
Springbok rugby projects itself as progress, but preserves the way things are in the popular consciousness of South Africans.
SPORTS
When the spirits of the ancestors call you back
A homage to a true pan-African athlete-activist, Lee Evans, who at the Olympics Games in 1968 broke the 400-meter world record and embarked on a life of political activism.
Abnormal rugby in an abnormal society
The British and Irish Lions tour of South Africa, in the middle of a pandemic, exposes the professional sports system for what it is.
Another hero falls
Eric “Bucs” Damons existed beyond the frame of the narrow scope of the elite South African sporting narrative.
The problem with South African football
South Africa failed to qualify for the 2022 African Cup of Nations in Cameroon and has failed to qualify for the World Cup since 2002. What else can their long suffering fans endure?
Football and empire
AIAC Talk this week: the historical entanglement of South African football with English football, and what that tells us about politics and sport. Watch it on our YouTube channel.
The life and times of Trevor Madondo
Trevor Madondo achieved a certain immortality in Zimbabwean cricketing lore precisely for the way in which he confronted cricket’s history as an instrument of empire.
Diego Maradona, anti-imperial symbol
For the peripheries and proletarians of the world—most of the world—Maradona is a symbol of defiance against the football aristocracy, corporate bosses and empire itself.
Sadio Mané, made outside Africa
The Liverpool striker, Sadio Mane, carries the values of his boyhood home, Bambali, with him. But his football is a product of the European professional game.
Sadio Mane is a Senegalese (Fairtrade) brand
What can the Senegalese Sadio Mane’s story tell us about the marketing of dreams.
More than a two-dimensional African celebrity
A new documentary about Liverpool FC striker, Sadio Mane, is watchable, but suffers from the fallacy that sports and politics don’t mix.
The brutal beauty of Morocco’s Soccer Ultras
Raja Casablanca's fan clubs are well organized, politically active and occasionally violent.
Saturday mornings
Recreational soccer in New York City offers significant social, cultural, and sometimes economic support for the city's working class African immigrants.
Reading List: Ronnie Close
The author of a book on football and revolution in Egypt gives us a list of must reads on football in the Middle East and North Africa.
The Blitzboks in America
What the recent World Rugby Sevens Series global championship reveals about national rugby cultures, particularly South Africa's.
Afro football fever
Football historian and broadcaster David Goldblatt’s new, encyclopedic book of football opens with a chapter on Africa. Here we republish an excerpt.
Zimbabwe’s forgotten football history
Zimbabwe’s national football was under black control decades before independence—but the colonial legacy of racial segregation still haunts.
The Salah effect
More and more footballers, many from Africa, are openly displaying their religious beliefs on the fields of Europe's top leagues.
Rugby and rainbows
Reflecting on white joy, black celebration, and the meaning of the Springbok win at the 2019 Rugby World Cup.