The Senegalese paradox
How Senegal rose to become one of the most fertile grounds in African football, and why this success still struggles to transform the local football economy.
Blog
Le paradoxe sénégalais
Comment le Sénégal est-il devenu l'un des viviers les plus prolifiques du football africain, et pourquoi ce succès peine-t-il encore à transformer l'économie du football local.
Sounds of the Africa Cup of Nations
What it sounds like on the ground in Morocco at the 2025 edition of Africa Cup of Nations.
AFCON and the politics of Africanhood
In Morocco, football has become a site for the slow re-Africanization of the country’s national identity.
The myth of Nigerian football exceptionalism
The Super Eagles don’t suffer from a shortage of talent, but represent a country unwilling to admit that greatness is not a birthright.
Salah in isolation
Distanced at club level, and scrutinized at home, there is no player with more to prove at this Africa Cup of Nations than Mohamed Salah.
The boys are back in town
Bafana Bafana’s resurgence has been forged where South African football always lives — between brilliance and the bizarre.
A giant chance
An African Cup of Nations at home for red hot Morocco is a chance to put past trauma aside and charge on to the world stage.
On the pitch
This year, instead of taking a publishing break, we will be covering the African Cup of Nations. To transition, we consider why football still matters in an era of enclosure, mediated presence, and thinning publics.
What does a museum mean here?
A dispatch from Benin City tells the unfinished story of the Museum of West African Art.
Has digital feminism peaked?
The scandal around Ezra Olubi has exposed the contradictions of Nigeria’s middle-class, online feminism.
Mapping Johannesburg’s wounds
In his latest exhibition, Khanya Zibaya charts the psychic and spatial terrain of a city where homelessness, decay, and human resilience sit uneasily together.