Matchday 1: Nnamdi Azikiwe, Ahmed Ben Bella and Muammar Gaddafi named substitutes because of their football legacies
African Five-a-sidePlay episode
Show notes
Matchday 1, our first set of episodes of the African Five-a-side podcast, takes a look at African football’s most influential politicians. Before we name the five most important politicians in African football history, we will draw up a list of honorable mentions.
The father of Nigerian nationalism, Nnamdi Azikiwe, is the first name on the team sheet. In this episode, we dissect how he used the media and his own sports club to galvanize support for Nigerian independence during the goodwill tours of 1941 and 1942.
Algeria's first president, Ahmed Ben Bella, takes up a seat next to Azikiwe. Ben Bella was a footballer in his local city of Maghnia prior to the Second World War. When the war broke out, Ben Bella was stationed in Marseille. Prior to heavy fighting, he displayed his skills at the military base. His performances earned him a cameo with Chateau-Gombert and Olympique de Marseille.
Muammar Gaddafi is the final man on the bench. Although he wasn't the biggest football fan, there can be no denying that he understood how to instrumentalize football to serve his own political machinations. Professional sport was banned during the first years of his reign, and it only returned under certain conditions. According to legend, in his inaugural address during the opening ceremony of the 1982 Africa Cup of Nations, Gaddafi finished his speech curtly: “Now, I leave you with your stupid game.”
So that’s the eclectic group of fellows that make the bench of our first Five-a-side team.
