@Chiefboima World Cup Diary Day 2 – Protests and Fan Fests
I haven’t been on social media yet, and I’m sure everyone’s already talking about this, but how fitting is it that the first goal of the tournament is an own goal by Brazil? I mean four goals scored by...
View Article@Chiefboima World Cup Diary Day 4 – Copa pra Quem?
One of the popular phrases that came out of the protests in the run up to the Cup was, “Copa pra quem”? On the third and fourth days of the Cup, I’ve been darting around to different neighborhoods in...
View ArticleFor the Tiki-Taka Brigade
The annihilation of Spain by the Netherlands last Friday (5-1) shocked and delighted football fans, pundits and creatives all at once, so much so that European pundits have something else to talk...
View Article@ChiefBoima World Cup Diary Day 12 – Fatigue
I’ve stopped going to Fan Fests. I’m tired, I didn’t pace myself. A month is a long time, and new arrivals seem to come every day. World Cup tourists have an endless number of substitutions. They’re...
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No, soccer is not invading America. It’s been here all along
Despite these types of troll-y click-bait articles being a dime a dozen each and every World Cup cycle, Jeff Winkler’s piece in the Guardian, “‘Soccer’ is a virus invading America,” deserves special...
View ArticleAfrica is a Radio: Season 1, Episode 4 (World Cup Special!)
I’m shortening the name of Africa is a Country Radio. From now on (save for when I slip up) the show will be known as Africa is a Radio! This month’s show dives fully (rather than the toe dip of last...
View ArticleSepp Blatter says sports boycotts don’t work. ‘Would Mandela agree?’
Earlier this week Sepp Blatter, defending FIFA’s decision to not rescind its decision to award Russia the World Cup in 2018, said “Boycotts in sport never has had any benefit.” Watch it here for...
View ArticlePlaying Cricket While Black
Vernon Philander is a black South African cricket player. This week the media has found him guilty in a trial by speculation for playing cricket while black. Until 1991, and the end of apartheid,...
View ArticleGoodbye John Shoes Moshoeu
Though Shoes Moshoeu and I never met in real life, when I was young he handed me his name and shared his memories with me. If he played well, the admiration rubbed on me. This is not true, the part...
View ArticleThe NBA comes to Africa: Interview with the NBA’s man in Africa, Amadou Gallo...
Today is game 1 of the NBA Finals between the Golden State Warriors, and the Cleveland Cavaliers. On August 1, the NBA will play its first game in Africa. The venue will be the Ellis Park Arena in...
View ArticleThe dream is free
I must have been looking elsewhere at first, because all I remember was moving closer to the screen at one moment, saying to myself: “Who is this and how did I miss him?” The person in question was...
View Article“Oh, don’t try me”: On style and salt and Serena Williams’s utterly...
This past summer I thought, again and again, about the rare range of things Serena Williams communicates on the tennis court. Never before has an athlete, or just about any other kind of performer,...
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The story of Lagos’ ill-fated 1976 Professional Tennis Tournament
It was Monday, February 16, 1976, a sunny day in Lagos, just before noon. The Lagos Lawn Tennis Club terraces were filled with middle class Nigerians and foreign expatriates. Arthur Ashe, current...
View ArticleWhen Pelé played in Nigeria during its civil war (did he really bring a...
“The official season actually starts with the famous (and still mysterious) tour of Africa. A tour so full of stories that there is no clear boundary between legend and fact.” – Professor Guilherme...
View ArticleBeyond the Boundary
On November, 10th 1991, after more than 20 years of isolation from international cricket, the South African cricket team played a One Day International against India in Kolkata. Nelson Mandela had only...
View ArticleThe Stade de France–A History in Fragments
The French national team player Patrice Evra was dribbling up the pitch when the second bomb exploded. Two minutes earlier, the same thing had happened: a loud, resonating explosion heard by the 65,000...
View ArticleThat time an African team played in Spain’s La Liga
The all-time Spanish Primera División table holds in it remarkable stories of Spanish football history. The standings unearth past epochs of preeminence and point to many of the shifts in power to...
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Akin Omotoso’s NBA All Star Weekend diary, Toronto
Wednesday 11th: In Rum We Trust All that snow that Alejandro G. Inarritu said evaded them in Alberta, Canada during The Revenant shoot finally turned up in The T-Dot with full force. I thought I would...
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No normal sport in an abnormal society
Recently, Aubrey Bloomfield, a graduate student at The New School, and I wrote a piece for The Nation about a sports boycott as a strategy against the occupation of Palestinian land by Israel. Here’s...
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Africa’s Premier League
Africa is a Country is excited to present to you, loyal reader, the Kickstarter campaign for our very first full-length documentary film project. It’s called “Africa’s Premier League,” it’s going to...
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