The Politics Of Football In Africa

Football (soccer) is arguably the most popular sports in much of Africa, from Alexandria, Egypt, to Cape Town, South Africa. Whole countries are known to have observed public holidays after a big win or experience convulsive protests after a big loss. Football is therefore politically charged in much of Africa. However, while for some countries, like Cameroon, football may serve as an opiate of the masses (a la Marxist description of religion), for others, like Egypt, football is a means to bring about political transformation. This is no where more glaring than in the recent developments in both countries. In Cameroon, the general public is going berserk because their star player, Samuel Eto'o, has been suspended for fifteen matches due to the buffoonery of the national football federation. In fact, it has led to a situation where the dictator of the country, Paul Biya, has stepped in to order the national football federation to revisit and revise the Eto'o case. In Egypt, however, national football fans have rallied around the importance of football in the country to form a political party that seeks the transformation of their country. Rather than being an end in itself, for Egyptians, football seems to be a means to an end. Not so for Cameroonians who have been trained by the dictator to live to watch football. One love, different ways of loving.