Analysis: Is Ivory Coast’s AFCON the latest African ‘sportswashing’ case?
Al Jazeera
African leaders, like politicians elsewhere, use the competition to seek quick wins on the pitch, for respite off it.
Abuja, Nigeria – African dictators have always been some of the biggest sport fans.
Idi Amin of Uganda funded a shopping trip to Libya for his country’s football team after it won the East & Central African Championship in 1976. Ali Bongo brought Lionel Messi into Gabon to lay the foundation for a new stadium before the 2017 African Cup of Nations (AFCON).
Around the world, sport has served as a tool for distracting or uniting countries in the throes of dictatorship or facing economic and political crises.
In volatile West Africa where there has been an average of two coups a year since 2020, the in-progress AFCON in Ivory Coast serves as a microcosm of the role of football, in general, and the tournament, specifically, have played in African politics.
While football fans might be looking strictly at the field, with a third of Africa headed to the polls soon, political pundits could do well to observe the underlying social and political effects of the tournament, rallying people around their flags and leaders.
