WHILE on holiday in Zimbabwe last week, my good friend Marc d’Entremond hit me up on e-mail, with some delightful news on the responses and comments about my blog post of the West Africa jaunt earlier this year.
Marc had shared my piece on his social networks, and his friends on LinkedIn had duly replied with accounts of their own experiences on that contentious “poverty porn”/aid argument. Traditional hacks and new-age bloggers alike, will agree that nothing is more satisfying to a writer than getting feedback off your work. It’s the fulfilment of what is known in the media trade as, “the completion of the communication circle”.
Sign of the times
Apart from people who will jive to Fela at the drop of a hat, another glaring commonplace trait in the sparse, semi-arid vastness of the Sahel region of West Africa – and most of the developing world, I hasten to add – is the tangible influence of football on the social fabric.
On the dusty streets of Niamey, Dosso, Accra, Ouagadougou or Dakar, you will find men, women and children, donning colourful shirts of their favourite football teams like tribal totems. It says much, and defines one before you even meet them or are presented with a formal introduction.
Observing such a phenomenon, as a staunch football enthusiast myself, was an near-academic epiphany in commerce and economics: if globalisation is more than a mere economic theory, then football is one of its paramount agents.
Fact: football is the world’s most popular sport. Among all sports, football is the one that saw the largest commercial explosion during the 20th century. Professional leagues exist on all continents and professional footballers are constantly on the move, trying to reach the wealthiest European clubs in the English Premiership, the Spanish La Liga, the Italian Serie A and the German Bundesliga.
It’s huge in most of Africa, where it’s the national sport in all 53 countries on the continent, BUT for Angola (for some odd reason, Angolans, prefer basketball to the “beautiful game”.)
Mum I’m on TV
Football is one of the most popular televised sports, attracting the support of millions of fans throughout the world, and the sponsorship of rich and powerful companies such as Etihad Airways (Manchester City), Standard Chartered Bank (Liverpool), Fly Emirates (Arsenal, AC Milan and Paris St. Germain), Samsung (Chelsea) and Aon (Manchester United)[In England, shirt sponsorship in the Premiership amounts to a whooping £147 million per season!]. Nevertheless, it is the relationship with television that draws links between the sport with transnational capitalism, as well as the importance of football in forming social and cultural identities.
Wherever you go in the world, you are a sure bet to find devoted fans of some of the world’s largest and most successful clubs; and stars. During my trip to West Africa, I saw hundreds of Barcelona fans, tens of “Leo Messis”, several Arsenal and AC Milan supporters, many “Samuel Eto’os” and (only) one “Edin Dzeko”.
11-year-old Blaise a.k.a Dzeko, of Ouagadougou told me: “I dream of playing for a big team in England, like Manchester City. They are the best, even though most of my friends think Barcelona are the main team. I watch City play every week on the television in the pub.”
It matters not to Blaise that his torn, counterfeit football strip bought at the local flea market is an imitation to the Umbro gear Dzeko would wear, week in and week out at the Etihad stadium. He is just happy to be identified with the current English premier league champions. He doesn’t speak any English and couldn’t spot the city of Manchester on the map. Still, he dreams on.
The big brand
We have all heard the argument before, football is now a global brand, and this has lead to changes in the way the game is played, owned and run.
Exploring the motivations and pleasures of these fans is one sure area of study for academics better read than myself, but the implications of football consumption on political discourse and the sport as a factor of cultural globalisation is clear for all to see, as a pivotal factor of modern social order.
Words and Photography by: @makiwahenry
Introducing the neat little app that’ll pay you to view content tailored to your interests:
ThisisFutbol.com are seeking new writers to join the team! If you’re passionate about football, drop us a line at “thisisfutbol.com@snack-media.com” to learn more.