Football
Boss Player
The Newscaster Komla Dumor loved sports, basketball (he had skills), and, above all, the beautiful game. He especially loved his Ghana's Black Stars.
The Black Manager
Can you name at least ten at least 10 black football managers who are in charge of club teams in the top leagues; and by top, we mean Europe.
Lilian Thuram’s burden
Why should black players have the burden of calling out racism, while white players don't feel compelled to do the same?
Nkrumah’s team is going to the World Cup
A short history of football, nation building and the consolidation of pan-African solidarity in 1960s Ghana.
The Big Boss
Stephen Keshi’s success as Nigeria's national men's soccer team coach, will perhaps encourage more African countries to look closer to home for coaching salvation.
If This Is Banter
The Newcastle United defender, Steven Taylor, is another no-nonsense (racist) English centre-half.
Hollywood Pelé
The news that a major studio is bankrolling a film about the Brazilian Pele, contender for greatest player of all time.
The Emperor’s Son
The decision by Spain's national football team to go play a football friendly in its former colony, Equatorial Guinea, has spotlighted how the latter country is run.
The Old Smiling Guy
Eqatorial Guinea in West Africa was a Spanish colony. Few Spanish football fans know where it is or how the rulers continue the violent politics inherited from Spain.
Football and Dictatorships
How much of Equatorial Guinean's tax money did the Obiangs pay to the Spanish FA for a meaningless match between its national teams?
Thierry Henry is bored
“Thierry Henry 1:1” is proof of what happens when the marketing men make films about football.
Palestine Scores
European football officials may have missed it, but Palestine already scored several goals in this season’s UEFA Champions League.
Monday morning quarterback
The first of our weekly posts on football’s goings-on, focusing on the politics of money, identity, and the power struggles shaping the game.
After the World Cup is gone
The book, "Africa’s World Cup," is a valuable source for thinking more deeply about the meanings and legacies of the 2010 edition of the competition hosted in South Africa.
Jogo Bonito
Preparations for the 2014 World Cup have served as a trigger for what may become a major political and social movement in Brazil.
The left winger
A meditation on left footed footballers, especially wingers, given the conventional wisdom that lefties are always useful to have in a match.
The Blood of the Impure
The French national anthem is a pretty nasty song. It dreams, in one of its more memorable verses, that the “blood of the impure” will “irrigate our fields.”