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African Soccerscapes: How a Continent Changed the World’s Game
From Accra and Algiers to Zanzibar and Zululand, Africans have wrested control of soccer from the hands of Europeans, and through the rise of different playing styles, the rituals of spectatorship, and the presence of magicians and healers, have turned soccer into a distinctively African activity. African Soccerscapes explores how Africans adopted soccer for their own reasons and on their own terms. Soccer was a rare form of “national culture” in postcolonial Africa, where stadiums and clubhouses became arenas in which Africans challenged colonial power and expressed a commitment to racial equality and self-determination. New nations staged matches as part of their independence celexadbrations and joined the world body, FIFA. The Confédération africaine de football democratized the global game through antiapartheid sanctions and increased the number of African teams in the World Cup finals. In this compact, highly readable book Alegi shows that the result of this success has been the departure of huge numbers of players to overseas clubs and the growing influence of private commercial interests on the African game. But the growth of women’s soccer and South Africa’s hosting of the 2010 World Cup also challenge the one-dimensional notion of Africa as a backward, “tribal” continent populated by victims of war, corruption, famine, and disease.
184 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2010
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
March 30, 2010
This slim volume, from a scholar fast developing a reputation as a leading expert on the history of African soccer, has hallmarks of a monograph converted from a PhD thesis but transcends the genre with an impeccably researched trawl through the development of the game on the continent.
Football is important for Africa. Its profile is the total sum of many Europeans’ understanding of the land mass and it’s certainly a field in which Africans have excelled. Alegi, an Associate Professor of History at Michigan State University with another book in the offing, develops a central thesis that African football has had an indelible impact on the international scene and expertly works his way through the history of the sport, culminating in a short final chapter on the upcoming World Cup. Although racialist notions of African inferiority and colonial abuses are never glossed over, the enthusiasm of the indigenous people for football is always evident – it should be remembered that soccer was often at the vanguard of anti-imperialist struggle: CAF was formed six years before the Organization of African Unity and Egypt’s decorated Al Ahly club were set up in direct opposition to colonialism. Most striking of all, the formation of an FLN sponsored Algerian side in exile saw the defection to their homeland of key members of France’s 1958 World Cup squad.
The book charts football’s trajectory in Africa from the 1860s, taking in the bringing of the sport into the interior with the coming of the railways, after its early success in the great port cities; the impact of European touring sides like the Motherwell of 1931 and 1934; the importance of transcendent flag bearers such as Salif Keita, the construction of sumptuous stadia as equally impressive for the time as the recent spate of Chinese built arenas in Angola; and the recent flood of players to Europe. For every Jimmy Kébé or Youssuf Mulumbu, there are a host of eighteen years olds on the scrapheap, plying their trade in non-league football across the old continent.
The early Nations Cup success of teams such as Sudan and the 1960 winners Ethiopia, and the decline of once great club sides such as three times Nations Cup winners Hafia Conakry are probably due to the change in the playing field brought about by what Alegi terms as the privatization of football from the 1980s onwards and it’s a convincing thesis, although the continued underperformance of East African sides is still something of a puzzle.
On the forthcoming jamboree, Alegi feel that it will be a successful World Cup and although he acknowledges that this is unlikely to be the case in pure financial terms, the likely positive outcomes will be emotional ones: this faith in intangible and immeasurable gains is a refreshing antidote to the mindless instrumentalism of much social science. In all, the author has produced an important book, academic and authoritative in tone, and one that leaves the reader in no doubt of football’s importance in forging African identity and greatly enriching the global sport as a whole.
Football is important for Africa. Its profile is the total sum of many Europeans’ understanding of the land mass and it’s certainly a field in which Africans have excelled. Alegi, an Associate Professor of History at Michigan State University with another book in the offing, develops a central thesis that African football has had an indelible impact on the international scene and expertly works his way through the history of the sport, culminating in a short final chapter on the upcoming World Cup. Although racialist notions of African inferiority and colonial abuses are never glossed over, the enthusiasm of the indigenous people for football is always evident – it should be remembered that soccer was often at the vanguard of anti-imperialist struggle: CAF was formed six years before the Organization of African Unity and Egypt’s decorated Al Ahly club were set up in direct opposition to colonialism. Most striking of all, the formation of an FLN sponsored Algerian side in exile saw the defection to their homeland of key members of France’s 1958 World Cup squad.
The book charts football’s trajectory in Africa from the 1860s, taking in the bringing of the sport into the interior with the coming of the railways, after its early success in the great port cities; the impact of European touring sides like the Motherwell of 1931 and 1934; the importance of transcendent flag bearers such as Salif Keita, the construction of sumptuous stadia as equally impressive for the time as the recent spate of Chinese built arenas in Angola; and the recent flood of players to Europe. For every Jimmy Kébé or Youssuf Mulumbu, there are a host of eighteen years olds on the scrapheap, plying their trade in non-league football across the old continent.
The early Nations Cup success of teams such as Sudan and the 1960 winners Ethiopia, and the decline of once great club sides such as three times Nations Cup winners Hafia Conakry are probably due to the change in the playing field brought about by what Alegi terms as the privatization of football from the 1980s onwards and it’s a convincing thesis, although the continued underperformance of East African sides is still something of a puzzle.
On the forthcoming jamboree, Alegi feel that it will be a successful World Cup and although he acknowledges that this is unlikely to be the case in pure financial terms, the likely positive outcomes will be emotional ones: this faith in intangible and immeasurable gains is a refreshing antidote to the mindless instrumentalism of much social science. In all, the author has produced an important book, academic and authoritative in tone, and one that leaves the reader in no doubt of football’s importance in forging African identity and greatly enriching the global sport as a whole.
May 21, 2010
Brief, but really good overview of the history of soccer on the African continent (and of African players abroad.) It starts off with the introduction of the game in Africa via various colonial institutions and continues on up to the present day with a bit about South Africa hosting the World Cup this summer. The chapter about African players moving to Europe and how it's left African league soccer with a "muscle drain" was fascinating. Definitely recommended.
December 12, 2017
I just finished teaching my African history survey course, and I chose this work at the last minute needing one more ancillary text to close out the semester. In the last discussion of the book, I asked my students if they liked the book, and general consensus was that they did. They believed that Alegi supported his argument well. He argues that the story of the global game of soccer cannot be written without reference to African players, coaches, etc. It's a basic thesis. In my assessment, he is successful. One of my students wanted more context about soccer as she had never read anything on the sport. Point well taken, but that wasn't Alegi's purpose. My students also liked the book and how it connected to the general theme of the course, which is Africa's historic connections to the world. This book is part of a book series by Ohio University Press entitled "Africa in World History." Alegi's book delivers on this. For the Africanist, the book may be too basic; but the series editors, David Robinson and Joseph Miller, comment that books in this series are geared to be accessible for non-specialists and undergrads. So for a 200-level African history survey it served me well. I can also see teaching this book in my World History course. As I teach this book more, I'll probably rate it higher; but the time being I like it. I look forward to teaching it again.
October 10, 2017
The prominence of Africa, and Africans, in the world’s most popular sport has become widely apparent as African players continue to fill important roles on many of the world’s most popular teams. When the 2010 FIFA World Cup tournament, international soccer’s biggest stage, was hosted by South Africa, it announced to the world that Africa had not only arrived, but would continue to play, an enormous role in the world’s game. In African Soccerscapes, historian Peter Alegi not only narrates the chronological relationship between Africans, their continent, and soccer, but he argues that Africans have had a unique, powerful, and lasting impact on the game itself.
June 11, 2023
This is book is a very informative and valuable resource for anyone interested in learning about football’s impact on the development of Africa’s sociopolitical and cultural landscape since it’s arrival on the continent. The author does a good job of presenting the nuances of this historical phenomenon that on closer reading make evident the truth that Africans also reshaped the geist of the sport and it’s sociopolitical and economic trajectory in the local and global context.
May 1, 2022
Read for my Colonialism and Africa class.
While this topic greatly interests me, the execution was not the best, there was just way too many statistical facts that did not need to take up entire paragraphs. Overall the topic is fascinating and the book isn’t long (~130 pages without notes and index).
While this topic greatly interests me, the execution was not the best, there was just way too many statistical facts that did not need to take up entire paragraphs. Overall the topic is fascinating and the book isn’t long (~130 pages without notes and index).
November 27, 2015
An excellent history of the use of football for political reasons in Africa. Very interesting to learn about African football development, too. Highly recommended book if you have an interest in sport and society.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews