The AFCON: beyond memes and banter
African football is not just a sport; it’s a culture.

Since 1968, every two—soon to be four—years, the African continent is engulfed in the politics, history, and pride of football, hosted by the African Cup of Nations (AFCON). 

For decades, the tournament’s asymmetry has platformed new names and opened doors to African excellence. But recently, the AFCON infiltrated international feeds; not as an ode to the talent of the continent, but as a mockery of its participants. This year, just weeks shy of the tournament, international football audiences anticipated the memes of the AFCON. 

Online, the culture of the AFCON is reduced to an event of “things you’ve never seen on a football field.” On ESPN, the supposed oddities listed include late-equaliser goals, celebrity cameos, and faulty celebrations—things that are present in most football matches. 

But, football is not the only aspect of African culture that is prone to ridicule. 

On TikTok, Nigerian cinema is reduced to out-of-context Nollywood clips as memes amongst international audiences, overlooking remarkable Nigerian cinematography like Eyimofe (2022), My Father’s Shadow (2025), and Mother of George (2013). African politicians are diminished to funny soundbites online, and whilst it can be comedic, the very audiences of these videos deafen their ears at the cries of attention towards African politics and Western interventionism. 

It is ridiculous to tend to the continent merely in moments of humour. In many instances, it has become a case of digital blackface, wherein the twenty-first century, anti-Black racism is reinforced through the exploitative use of Black culture as comedic relief. 

While I raise criticism of this meme-ification, I acknowledge that the tournament is festive and the jokes that arise from its duration can be comical. There is nothing wrong with African joy. But, to rinse the entirety of the tournament—and the continent—to memes is insulting. 

The politics of African football

Football is more than just a sport; it is the very heart of Africa. 

Since the twentieth century, football has embodied an extension of the independence movements occurring on the African continent. When football was limited to European communities in African colonies, the pitches served as a field for revolutions and the birth of national identities amongst Africans. 

In 1958, four years prior to Algeria’s official independence from France’s 132-year occupation, eleven Algerian footballers disappeared from France, just months before the World Cup. When they reappeared a few days later, they sought to initiate an Algerian national football team—a team without a “land.” But, it was this organisation that reinforced international pressure to recognise the statehood of a free Algeria. 

In South Africa, football has been a mirror for apartheid history. Unlike rugby during the 1990s, South African football was an organised  “normal sport in an abnormal society,” proclaiming racial integration years prior to the rise of the African National Congress (ANC) and Nelson Mandela’s anti-apartheid policies. 

To the West, in Senegal, football is culturally deemed as a measure of economic and social prosperity—and this is a trend that floats across the continent, for the success of teams shapes national self-perception. 

In the North, the AFCON is a fertile ground for identity politics. Debates about the Africaness of North Africans during the tournament become popular. And in recent years, younger generations have reclaimed their Amazigh identities as a way of legitimising their national team’s participation in the AFCON. 

It is distasteful that the AFCON is painted as an unofficial and “[non]major tournament” by the international world, whilst treating African players—like Zineddine Zidane, Kylian Mbappe, Paul Pogba, Romelu Lukaku, Bukayo Saka—as European excellency. The irony is that European football excellency has been sculpted by the African diaspora. 

But, in many ways, African football serves as a useful mirror for European imperialism and internalised racism.

Whilst the AFCON often comes with the emotional loyalty of patriotism, and in turn, a division that European colonialism intended for, the culture that is refined from the tournament destabilises cultural monopoly and strengthens Africanity. Musical production, songs like Coup du marteau and Mabrook ‘alina, bleed beyond drawn borders and renegotiate the boundaries of citizenship and nationality. 

For a month, at least, being African transcends the walls of European-made divisions, harnessed by a familial banter of Africanity. And the banter of the AFCON is what makes African football feel authentic. It does not require European validation to be recognised as a major tournament—because it is, regardless of what the unrefined palates of the international masses claim. 

The AFCON is ours to enjoy, not yours to ridicule.