Africa’s Elite Football Structure, Politics, and Everyday Challenges Routledge Contemporary Africa Series

This book explores various aspects of intranational elite football in Africa, drawing on the expertise of notable scholars from across the world.

Africa?s Elite Football focuses on an area largely ignored by current scholarship on African football, where interest has focused on international migration. In exploring the intranational, the book is written in two parts. The first is a general focus on the continent, and the second is an examination of country cases. The general focus of the book is on the nature of elite tier leagues, the relationship between politics and football, the media, youth academies, intranational migration and fans. Notably, chapters on topics such as intranational migration present groundbreaking scholarship in this area. Currently, football discourses on migration focus on international migration of footballers, yet the majority of migration in African football is intranational. Thus, by addressing the intranational, this book brings attention to an area that is underrepresented in the current academic discourse. The second part of the book, which focuses on country cases, covers Botswana, Egypt, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, Zambia and Zimbabwe. The topics explored in those cases include religiosity, health, women?s football, media and management. The coverage of health-related issues is particularly important given that several books on African football rarely broach such a topic.

With its unique approach to African football, this book will be of interest to scholars and students of sports history, African studies, politics in sports and African sports.

Part 1: General Issues in African Football 1. The Structure and Nature of Professional Elite Leagues in Africa 2. The State, Fans and Football Politics 3. Elite Local Leagues and Transnational Broadcast of European Football 4. The Rise of Football Academies 5. Socioeconomic Analysis of African Footballers’ Migration to Europe: Elements for Decision Making based on the West African Case 6. Intra-National Football Migrations and Impact 7. Globalization of Football Match Fixing: Experiences from Africa 8. Culture of Magic and Sorcery in African Football 9. African Fandom: From Cape Town to Cairo Part 2: Country Cases 10.From Ethnic Community to a Popular Culture: The Case of Gor Mahia Football Fandom in Kenya 11. Egypt: Encountering an Infusion of Middle East Cash 12.Nigeria: Women Football League and Struggle for Survival 13. What Model for Football Club Management in Africa? A Case Study of Two Football Teams in Senegal 14. Mediatization of Zimbabwe’s Professional Football League Management Style and Intellectual Property Rights in Crisis Times 15. The Magical Economy of the Botswana Local Football League 16. Religiosity in African Football: ‘Magic’ and Christianity in the Zambian Game in Colonial and Modern Times 17. Nigeria: Health and Medical Issues in Elite Football

Chuka Onwumechili is Professor of Communications in the Strategic, Legal and Management Department at Howard University, Washington D.C., United States of America.