Africa, Football and FIFA: Politics, Colonialism and Resistance

The emblem of the Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), is claimed to symbolize a "global fraternity united in sport." However, the globalization of relations between football's national associations, intercontinental federations and the world body have more often been conducted on the basis of parochial, national or regional loyalties rather than on a sense of internationalism. Nowhere has this been more apparent than in the relationship between FIFA and the Confederation Africaine de Football. This book explores the role of FIFA in brokering the development of football in Africa and its relationship with that continent's football associations and regional governing body. Africa is no longer on the periphery of world football but the economic disparities between the first and the third worlds hinder the development of the game. The author shows convincingly how Africa's advance within world football is tied to its national political economy and how the balance of power within FIFA still clearly favours its European members.

Paul Darby is a lecturer in the sociology of sport at Liverpool Hope University College. He has written broadly on the relationship between Europe and Africa as mediated by football. He is currently undertaking research on identity, Gaelic sport and the Irish immigrant and is also Senior Academic Editor of the international journal Soccer and Society. He received his doctorate from the University of Ulster in 1997