|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
The final of the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) between Morocco and Senegal was one of the most important nights in the history of football on the continent. The reputational damage to African football will linger for a long time as youths throughout the world saw the self-confidence of Africans as the Senegalese stood their ground and refused to be bullied.
A match that exposed the technique and skills of African youth was nearly brought into disrepute by the conduct of some officials. Many in the international media blamed the Senegalese players and used words like ‘shameful’ to describe the protests of the Senegalese. But Global Africa and oppressed peoples everywhere saw the victory of the Senegalese as a great victory for African self-confidence. Before the tournament, Mané had told CAF Media: “I’ve never wanted to be remembered only as a great footballer. I want to be remembered as a great human being. For me, that is far more important.”
He was speaking for all Africans who wanted to be recognized as human beings.
Background to AFCON
The Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) was founded in 1957 in Khartoum, Sudan in the same year that Ghana had become independent. Sudan became independent from British colonial rule in 1956. Africans had worked hard for nearly one hundred years to decolonize football. Historians note that the first major football games in Africa were played in South Africa. As one journalist noted on National Public Radio (NPR) in the United States at the time of the World Cup in South Africa in 2010,
“the game came with European imperialism and first with the British, of course. And it was the soldiers, it was the traders, the missionaries who really pushed the game. And they were the ones who played that first game in 1862, almost 150 years ago. But the game spread very quickly through the mission schools, through the military forces and through the railways. And it was quickly embraced by Africans.”
Professor Peter Alegi, who was being interviewed by NPR, stated, “Within the first two decades or so, we already have documents showing that there were African teams and Indian teams in Southern Africa. So, already by the 1880s, 1890s. So very early on…”
“In different regions it spread at different paces. So, for example, in Algeria, the French already had some clubs set up in the late 19th century, early 20th century. In Ghana, also, we have the oldest surviving club in Africa, Cape Coast Excelsior founded in 1903.”
So, you know, at the coast, the clubs were formed quite early on. And then by the 1920s, 1930s, the game had spread into the interior of the continent as well.”
The Democratization of Soccer by Africans.
Across the African continent, football became fundamentally a working-class sport—played on dusty streets, in mining compounds, at urban intersections, and on improvised fields carved from whatever open space colonial spatial planning had not seized. From the ports of Lagos and Mombasa to the mining towns of Katanga, from Cairo’s working-class neighborhoods to Dakar’s urban peripheries, the game spread not through elite institutions but through the autonomous organization of dock workers, miners, domestic laborers, and the urban poor. Limited access to formal facilities—stadiums, proper pitches, equipment—became the crucible for distinctive African playing styles emphasizing ball control, improvisation, and creativity under constrained material conditions. What European colonizers introduced as civilizing discipline, African working classes transformed into sites of collective joy, community solidarity, and eventual anti-colonial resistance.
This working-class foundation persists: Africa’s greatest players—from Mané running barefoot in Bambali’s fields to Eto’o emerging from Douala’s streets—consistently come from impoverished communities where football remains accessible precisely because it requires so little. Yet this same working-class talent base now generates billions for European clubs and broadcast networks, replicating extraction patterns where African labor enriches external capital while domestic football infrastructures remain systematically underfunded. The contradiction defines contemporary African football: rooted in working-class communities, celebrated as a source of continental pride, yet structurally positioned to channel its best talent and attention toward European profit accumulation.
From the 1990s onward, African players became central to global football consciousness. Weah’s Ballon d’Or (1995), Eto’o’s Champions League dominance, Drogba’s Chelsea heroics, Salah’s Liverpool stardom – these weren’t marginal stories. They were the stories that millions of football fans worldwide followed obsessively. Global Africa also tracks these players intensely. By the start of the twenty-first century, African players brought different tactical innovations, technical approaches, and cultural meanings to the game of soccer. They challenged who could claim ownership of football’s global narrative and demonstrated that the game’s evolution was never a European monopoly. African soccer superstars like Didier Drogba and George Weah attracted millions of devoted soccer fans, often called footy fans.
African footballers became vectors of Pan-African pride and political expression, even as their excellence was captured within European commercial structures. European broadcast monopolies generate billions from African talent performing in European leagues and from African audiences consuming these spectacles, while African domestic football remains systematically excluded from broadcast investment—a pattern replicating broader neocolonial extraction where African labour and markets enrich European capital.
African Football and African Independence
The Confederation of African Football (CAF) was founded in Khartoum in the same year that Ghana gained independence, and its creation was openly political. Abdel Nasser (President of Egypt who had nationalized the Suez Canal in the previous year) viewed the new body as part of an anti-colonial project. The founding members, Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, and South Africa, established the first pan African sporting institution at a moment when movements for decolonization were rapidly expanding. The lack of any continent wide organization before 1957 was not a coincidence. It reflected the design of colonial rule. Just as imperial powers drew borders to divide African peoples, they structured football in ways that prevented continental cooperation and unity.
The creation of the Confédération Africaine de Football (CAF) was celebrated with the inaugural tournament featuring Egypt, Ethiopia, and Sudan. South Africa’s exclusion from the inaugural 1957 AFCON—after refusing to field a multiracial team—marked African football’s first major anti-apartheid stance. CAF expelled South Africa in 1961, followed by FIFA suspension. Pro-apartheid European lobbying secured brief FIFA reinstatement in 1963, but continental solidarity and international anti-apartheid movements sustained South Africa’s exclusion until the defeat of apartheid and the coming into force of an African government. One of the most influential anti-apartheid activists who went around Africa and the world opposing South Africa playing in AFCON and in the Olympics was the journalist and poet Dennis Brutus. He later became one of the foremost proponents of reparative justice in Global Africa.
Imperialism was not asleep and sought to sow divisions with its mantra about black Africa or sub-Saharan Africa. AFCON was one major Pan African platform that rejected the imperialist narratives about divisions in Africa. Although sections of the political leadership in the Maghreb and Egypt may sow divisions about Africa, no leader dare suggest that Egypt, Sudan, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco be excluded from the tournament.
Maturation of Football in Africa
CAF organizes African football through several regional zones, each bringing together countries with shared geography and football traditions. In the north, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt work together under the North Africa Union. West Africa is represented by a group that includes Nigeria, Ghana, Senegal, and Ivory Coast. Central Africa is organized through a regional body that brings together nations such as Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Angola. In the east, Sudan, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, and Ethiopia participate in a long-standing regional association. Southern Africa is coordinated through a partnership that includes South Africa, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
For much of the history of the Africa Cup of Nations, North African, and West African teams dominated the tournament and won most of the thirty-five titles. North Africa’s success is led most prominently by Egypt, which is the most successful team in AFCON history with seven titles, far more than any other nation. North African countries such as Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco have also contributed to this regional dominance with multiple or historic wins that makes the subregion’s twelve successful campaigns. West Africa has been equally influential, with Ghana winning four titles, Nigeria winning three, and Ivory Coast also earning three championships in the region’s twelve titles. Central Africa’s Cameroon has won five titles out of the subregion’s eight trophies and sits second on the chart of most successful AFCON teams. Southern Africa has two trophies while East Africa has one title. The long record of victories shows that for decades, teams from North and West Africa regions set the competitive standard in African football and frequently claimed the continent’s top prize.
But the popularity of the AFCON in Africa grew slowly because of imperial marketing of the Premier League in England, the European football league, until the rise of social media since the end of the first decade of this millenium. Hundreds of thousands of young and old African men follow European teams religiously with the British football team, Manchester United, being mentioned as the club with the most followers in Africa. Imperial marketing ensured that talented young players dreamt of their future as football super stars in Europe.
The 1998 French World Cup victory exposed neocolonial extraction patterns within football itself. The squad’s substantial African and Caribbean representation—Zidane (Algeria), Desailly (Ghana), Vieira (Senegal), Thuram and Henry (Guadeloupe)—prompted Pan-Africanists to provocatively claim this as ‘Africa’s first World Cup.’ The assertion wasn’t merely celebratory; it underscored how European football success depended on talent flows from former colonies, while structural barriers prevented African nations from converting their player production into continental triumph.
The dominance of African descendants continued in France with superstars appearing every generation. The latest was and is Kylian Mbappé, one of the greatest footballers of this generation. Born in Paris to Algerian mother and a Cameroonian football coach, Wilfred Mbappé, the same year that Zidane exploded on the world stage, Kylian Mbappé is widely regarded as one of the best players in the world, known for blistering pace, elite dribbling, and prolific finishing. He was the anchor of the French victory for the 2018 FIFA World Cup, becoming the second teenager after Pelé to score in a World Cup final. The dialectics of racism, colonialism and its opposite anti racism, anti-colonialism is nowhere better expressed in the vociferous opposition of Mbappe to the vitriolic racism of the National Front in France.
The Context of the 35th Edition of CAF, 2025
The 35th edition of the tournament, held in Morocco from December 21, 2025 to January 18, 2026 marks the first time AFCON was played over the Christmas and New Year period. The winter scheduling resulted from FIFA’s expanded Club World Cup occupying the traditional June-July window, compounded by the expanded UEFA Champions League calendar. Morocco received hosting rights in September 2023 after Guinea was stripped of them due to inadequate preparations. This was Morocco’s second time hosting after 1988. Football enthusiasts conversant with the politics of hosting tournaments will appreciate the developmental, political legitimacy and diplomatic currency that surround the struggle to win hosting slots.
There was ambivalence in many parts of Africa over the political stance of Morocco, given its close relations with France, Israel and other imperial forces. Morocco continues to illegally hold on to Western Sahara. The mass of Africans separated the Moroccan state from the Moroccan people and recognized that the Gen Z in Morocco were fighting against the semi-feudal monarchy, and news reports indicated that about 1.1 million spectators attended the matches in person. Approximately two billion people worldwide watched the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations in Morocco on television or online. There were twenty-four national teams competing in the tournament.
Celebrating Patrice Lumumba at AFCON
Of the twenty-four teams that participated in the tournament, every country had their story. The Ivorians wanted to gain the title again. After defeating Mozambique, Burkina Faso and Gabon, they were defeated in the quarter finals by Egypt. The Nigerians struggled for third place defeating Egypt in the penalty shootout. Tanzanians claimed that they were robbed of a penalty. Among the tournament’s most resonant moments was not a goal or a save, but a 53-year-old Congolese man standing perfectly still reminding the world of the crimes of imperialism in Africa in the killing of Patrice Lumumba.
Michel Kuka Mboladinga became the unexpected icon of AFCON 2025. Throughout each Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) match, dressed in tailored suits echoing the colors of his national flag, Mboladinga stood motionless on a pedestal in the stands, right arm raised, recreating the famous statue of Patrice Lumumba that stands in Kinshasa. For ninety minutes—and when necessary, through extra time—he held the pose, never wavering even as goals were scored or chances missed, his body a living memorial to Congo’s first Prime Minister, assassinated in 1961 after just months in office.
The tribute, which Mboladinga had been performing since 2013, took on power in this moment. Sixty-four years after Belgian, American, and complicit Congolese forces murdered Lumumba for his refusal to subordinate Congo’s sovereignty to Western interests, his memory animated conversations across the continent about what genuine independence requires. “I chose Patrice Lumumba because he is a model of courage and a model of freedom,” Mboladinga explained. “For me, football is more than a sport; it is a remembrance. Lumumba gave his life for our dignity.”[2]
What elevated this individual act into a continental phenomenon was the response it generated. After Algeria eliminated Congo in the round of 16 with a devastating 119th-minute goal, Mboladinga finally broke his pose—collapsing in tears into the crowd behind him. When an Algerian player appeared to mock the tribute during his goal celebration, it sparked immediate controversy. But rather than devolving into nationalist antagonism, the moment catalyzed reflection on shared anti-colonial history. Algerian footballers and officials quickly clarified their respect for Lumumba’s legacy, noting that Algeria itself honors Lumumba with plaques and gardens, and that Lumumba had been outspoken against French colonialism in Algeria, declaring in 1960: “We all know, and the whole world knows it, that Algeria is not French.”[3]
The Algerian Football Federation honored Mboladinga in Casablanca, presenting him with an Algeria jersey emblazoned with “Lumumba” on the back. The gesture of honoring and celebrating Patrice Lumumba and African freedom fighters resonated internationally. Youths in the footy world, many of whom had never heard of Patrice Lumumba, came across his name through their own football culture. That first encounter pushed them to look him up and to learn about the roles of the CIA, Belgium, and Mobutu. This gesture of remembering Lumumba rippled across the tournament. Nigeria’s Akor Adams mimicked Mboladinga’s statue pose after scoring against Algeria in the quarterfinals, transforming what could have been a point of division into an affirmation of pan-African solidarity. The Confederation of African Football featured the tribute in its tournament narrative, recognizing it as representing African ‘heritage.’ Morocco extended VIP treatment to Mboladinga for the tournament’s duration. The Congolese government, through its Minister of Sports, gifted him a vehicle in recognition of his role as what they termed a ‘symbolic supporter’ and ‘living monument.’
January 17, 2026 was the 65th anniversary of the brutal assassination of Lumumba and the Congolese freedom fighters. This was one day before the final, but by then the DRC team had been eliminated. That Mboladinga’s tribute became one of the most discussed symbols of a tournament watched by two billion people demonstrates football’s continuing capacity to host conversations about power that formal political discourse often suppresses. In stadiums across Morocco, millions encountered or reconnected with Lumumba’s vision—not through academic treatises or official commemorations, but through the embodied commitment of a man willing to endure physical pain to keep a radical memory alive. Academic William Ackah observed that “The spirit of Lumumba that is echoing through Morocco and the continent is a timely reminder that we must resist selling out our heritage and cultures at all costs. Lumumba’s fiercely anti-colonial stance and his dedication to African unity still shines like a beacon for all those across the continent and diaspora who hope for a free and independent African continent.”[4] The tribute’s power derived from the historical conjuncture when there is renewed confidence among the youth of Africa.
The Alliance of Sahelian States’ anti-imperialism stance galvanized continental sentiment, with Senegal’s political transformation amplifying this momentum. PASTEF’s landslide victories—first in the March 2024 presidential election, then in November’s legislative vote—brought a new generation to power and unleashed a new popular confidence characterized by Pan-African assertiveness, democratic renewal, and continent-wide expectations for transformative change. Moreover, the US Christmas bombing of Nigeria and the abduction of the Venezuelan President ensured that the anti-imperialist spirit was alive in the global participants in this cultural event. From villages, towns and communities all over the world, hundreds gathered to watch the final of the AFCON 2025. The mayor of New York, Zohran, hosted a watch party for the final, echoing the spirit of the renewed self-confidence of the youth. Viral images of the watch party hosted by the mayor of the biggest city in the United States showed a youthful African who was also transmitting confidence and the vision that dynamic changes are afoot in the world.
This convergence of sport, memory, and political commitment illustrates why football remains central to African political culture despite—or perhaps because of—the sport’s own contradictions. The same tournament that elevated Lumumba’s anti-imperialist vision operates within structures of capital accumulation that reproduce imperial patterns. Yet in the stands, in goal celebrations, in the viral circulation of images across social media, ordinary Africans continue making football mean something beyond what institutions intend. Mboladinga’s performance—and the continental response it generated—demonstrated that the struggle Lumumba embodied remains unfinished, its questions still urgent, its demands still radical. Senegal defeated Egypt in the semifinals on January 14, while Morocco claimed the other side by defeating Nigeria in penalties.
The Final.
Such was the context of the final. Youthful energy of Morocco against the youthful energies of Senegal. The game started with the Senegalese confidence coming through with their control of the ball on the field. The first half ended nil – nil. As the press reported and those watching saw, with the score still nil – nil, Senegal thought it had scored the winner when Ismaïla Sarr bundled the ball over the line in the second minute of added time at the end of the match. The referee disallowed this goal.
With their goal disallowed by the referee, those who supported Senegal were equally astounded when the referee awarded Morocco a penalty. Protests led by the Senegalese coach, Pape Thiaw, spilled out onto the pitch, preventing the penalty from being taken. Players, officials and coaching staff engaged in heated verbal exchanges,
“Then, in sensational scenes, Thiaw ordered his players off the field as a way of protest. Some of his team listened and disappeared into the locker room, while a handful of others stayed on the field to try calm the situation.”[5]
Cooler heads and diplomatic maturity ensured that some of the Senegalese players stayed on the field.
“Chief among those who remained on the field was Senegalese star Mané, who had said this would be his final AFCON game for the national team. The forward seemed intent on his team finishing the match and was seen urging his teammates to come back on the pitch. After a brief conversation with former Senegal player El Hadji Diouf in the stands, Mané ran towards the players’ tunnel to demand that the rest of the squad come back out on the pitch. Eventually, they listened and play resumed after a 14-minute delay.”[6]
As regulation time ticked past 90 minutes with the score 0–0, the match was nail biting. The vigour of the players was being tested. Which team had the stamina for extra time? Which team would focus on controlling the game? The Senegalese team had shown restraint throughout the game. Their goalie was taunted. Fans of Morocco crept up to the goal to take away the towel of the Senegalese goalie.
Brahim Díaz, who led the tournament in scoring with five goals, stepped up to take the 114th-minute penalty that could have won Morocco its first AFCON trophy in 50 years. Drama and self-assertiveness of Senegal: Who was calm and who was nervous? The Senegalese were calm. The goalie was composed, despite the taunting that he was subjected to. Brahim Díaz is one of the superstars of Morocco. He plays for Real Madrid in La Liga and earns approximately €7.2 million per year.
Díaz attempted a Panenka, a style of penalty kick in football where the player gently chips the ball down the center of the goal instead of shooting to either side. The Panenka penalty relies on the kicker (the smart Real Madrid Player) waiting for the goalkeeper to commit to diving left or right, then using a soft, lifted touch instead of power. The ball floats slowly down the middle of the goal—precisely where the goalkeeper was standing before diving away.
But Édouard Mendy, the Senegalese goalie was composed. Concentration and nerves triumphed over bombast. Mendy read it and saved comfortably—an enormous momentum swing that electrified Senegal’s supporters and appeared to deflate the hosts. With the immediate danger averted, the final whistle soon arrived on 90+ minutes with the teams still level and the match headed to extra time. Most watching the game said that it was karma for the Moroccans to kick the ball straight into the hands of the Senegalese goalie, Édouard Mendy.
The Road to Victory
Early in extra time, Senegal seized their moment. In the 94th minute overall (about 4 minutes into extra time), after a dribble and pass that exposed the skill, finesse and speed of the Senegalese, Pape Gueye produced a crisp, decisive strike to put the Lions of Teranga ahead 1–0. From there, Senegal managed the contest with renewed composure, seeing out the remaining extra-time minutes without conceding, and clinched their second AFCON title on Moroccan soil.
During the suspension, Sadio Mané played a pivotal role on the field of leadership. He remained intent on finishing the match, urging his teammates to return and warning that abandoning a final would harm the image of African football. Thiaw later acknowledged that his instruction to leave had been an emotional reaction in the heat of the moment; after reflecting, he brought the team back and apologized publicly for the walk-off.
Significance of AFCON 2025
Senegal and its population are a microcosm of the renewed self-confidence of Africa. Monday January 20, 2026 was declared a public holiday by a youthful President. The significance of AFCON 2025 goes far beyond the controversy surrounding the final.
The tournament demonstrated it is not the country with billions of dollars or those who have the support of FIFA that will prevail. There is still room for athleticism, skill and concentration in football. The tournament also showed quite clearly that politics cannot be separated from sports. Millions of youths who watched this tournament did not know of the history of the start of the competition or the controversies surrounding the place of the apartheid teams in the sports.
Many in the international media blamed the Senegalese players and used words like ‘shameful’ to describe the protests of the Senegalese. But Global Africa and oppressed peoples everywhere saw the victory of the Senegalese as a great victory for African self-confidence.
Sadio Mané’s declaration that he prioritizes being recognized as a ‘great human being’ over a ‘great footballer’ reflects his profound humility and rejection of the luxury-driven lifestyle associated with elite sports. This philosophy manifests in concrete action: Mané has invested over £700,000 ($860,000) in his home village of Bambali—constructing a hospital (serving 34 surrounding villages with maternity ward, dental facilities, and emergency care), building a secondary school with donated laptops and 4G internet connectivity, funding a stadium, post office, and petrol station. He provides monthly stipends of €70 to every family in his 2,000-person village—roughly equivalent to Senegal’s monthly minimum wage. His famous response when questioned about carrying a cracked iPhone captures his values:
“Why would I want ten Ferraris, 20 diamond watches, and two jet planes? What would that do for the world? I starved, I worked in the fields, played barefoot, and I didn’t go to school. Now I can help people. I prefer to build schools and give poor people food or clothing… I do not need to display luxury cars, luxury homes, trips, and even planes. I prefer that my people receive some of what life has given me.”[7]
Mané’s statement was a profound declaration of social collectivism and the spirit of redistribution that survives in rural Africa—values that stand in direct opposition to the ostentatious individualism celebrated in Western sporting culture. His insistence on being remembered as a ‘great human being’ rather than merely a ‘great footballer’ echoes the Pan-African principles that animated liberation movements: wealth as collective resource, success measured by community uplift, individual achievement as opportunity for social transformation.
This same political consciousness found expression in the Lumumba tribute at AFCON 2025. Neither the millions watching the Congolese supporter’s banner nor the global football audience necessarily knew Lumumba’s full story—his assassination orchestrated by Belgian and American intelligence, his vision of resource sovereignty, his challenge to neocolonial extraction. Yet the tribute’s resonance revealed how football provides crucial space for heightening political consciousness, promoting anti-racism and anti-imperialism outside traditional academic discourse. Kylian Mbappé’s consistent anti-racist and anti-fascist stance—particularly his vocal opposition to France’s far-right—extends this tradition, demonstrating how Global African players transform football into a site of political education. Millions encounter or reconnect with radical anti-imperial thought through sport, reaching audiences that academic scholarship alone cannot mobilize. Mané’s philosophy of redistribution, the Lumumba tribute’s anti-colonial memory, and Mbappé’s anti-fascist activism together demonstrate that African football and soccer displays from people of African descent is not merely entertainment but a contested terrain where alternative visions of human dignity, collective solidarity, and resistance to oppression remain alive.
Resources for African women’s soccer remain scarce and investments in sports is still low while countries such as Congo and Rwanda are sponsoring European teams. The money in these sponsorship deals could be invested in these countries’ football infrastructure. The fundamental tension endures: on one side, women and young people across Africa are asserting their right to participate fully in public life; on the other, the institutions around them—religious bodies, state authorities, and international sports regulators—continue attempting to set limits on that participation. Yet each match played, every boundary pushed, and even every new restriction imposed becomes part of a broader awakening in which Africa’s youth are building a renewed sense of self-confidence, refusing to accept imposed constraints and insisting on shaping their own mobility, visibility, and futures.
Thiaw’s controversial initial decision ultimately revealed a coach who acted decisively, corrected course, and protected his team’s route to becoming AFCON 2025 champions. His brief but firm stance in a hostile post-match environment showed emotional restraint and a clear determination to shield his players from further escalation.
The political consciousness that surrounded AFCON 2025 has provided an opportunity for Africans, and footballers in Global Africa to reflect on the history of the African struggles for dignity, equity in sports and fairness in every space where profiteering and imperial control manifest. This legacy is a historic win for all constituencies who oppose oppression but will not call it quits and surrender to opponents in the face of injustices.
–
This article was first published by Pambazua News.
