Football, colonial doctrine and indigenous resistance: Mapping the political persona of FIFA's African constituency

The initial analysis contained within this article provides a broadly representative account of the diffusion and early development of football on the African continent by examining the spread of the game to a selection of former colonies that were controlled by three of Europe's primary imperial powers (Britain, Belgium and France). Attention is accorded to illuminating the nature of the linkages between football's diffusion to Africa and the various forms of colonial doctrine and imperialist policy that were prevalent throughout that continent during the first half of the twentieth century and this reveals that the game has featured in colonial exploitation and cultural imperialism. However, as the study goes on to illustrate, towards the latter stages of colonialism in Africa, football increasingly came to represent a forum for protest and resistance against European rule and the economic and cultural imperialisms that it engendered. The functioning of football in Africa as a form of resistance is also highlighted by examining the ways in which the game and its national, regional and international administrative structures were appropriated by newly independent African states, for the purposes of constructing a national identity and communicating that identity on an international basis. FIFA's limited role in mediating football's early growth in Africa and its subsequent reluctance to countenance Africa's lobby for a democratization of the game's global institutional and competition structures is also critically analysed. It is argued that the approach of the world governing body during the first 60 years of its existence was in many ways resonant of the missionary philosophy and, at times, elitist and exploitative attitudes that characterized the administration of the colonies by their European 'masters'. The article concludes by asserting that any understanding of the politicized nature of African football's contemporary aspirations within FIFA and the world game must be informed by an appreciation of the ways in which football in Africa became intertwined with independence, nationalism and the broader struggle for global recognition.