As co-author of `More Than Just A Game:Football v Apartheid’, I owe a great debt to Peter Alegi. He has written a number of the most telling and exhaustively researched books and articles about the history of soccer in Africa and its resultant political, social and cultural impact. His latest book, `African Soccerscapes:How A Continent Changed The World’s Game’ is a must-buy. An astutely comprehensive overview of over 150 years of soccer in Africa, it contains many engrossing examples of just how much the sport has always been more than just a game across the African continent. For example, how soccer became a vehicle for political change in Algeria in the late fifties and early sixties, when the FLN were fighting against French colonialism and actively enlisted professional Algerian players from the French leagues to create a `rebel’ team that toured the world to popularise and support their independence cause. I cannot recommend this book highly enough.
Tags: Marvin Close