Steff Ndei

Fantastic game this. Brilliant football, everyone is brave with the ball, not careful. There is referee drama on and off the pitch, and the crowd is alive. Just needs a goal.

An occupational hazard I’ve been facing lately is interacting with experts whose works have informed and influenced global policy, and reckoning how little they know about Africa. This blind spot isn’t on Africa alone, I have to admit. But that epiphany leaves me with a lot questions.

Interesting take by Slot: “I can live with the red card… if you like football you say leave it as it is, it’s a goal, it’s good for them, it’s good for everyone. But if you are the Sunderland manager you prefer to see a red card. And as a rule, then follow the rules, it’s all we ask.”

I’m assuming the Liverpool players and staff protesting the third goal didn’t consider that Szoboszlai would be sent off—correctly, as per the letter of the law?

I’m not just a VAR abolitionist but a VAR accelerationist: these farcical moments could be worth celebrating if they turn out to hasten its decline.

Entertaining, isn’t it? 😂

Infantino will continue gaslighting the world that FIFA is redistributing its profits to poor children in Africa. It is not. Simply put, FIFA should be judged on its sporting mandates which it is not delivering. The rest of the issues we're judging it on are category errors.

in this global order where multilateralism is increasingly being challenged and institutions are being judged on whether they are fulfilling their mandates. Because the ones with the instruments to hold FIFA accountable fail to read the room and are holding FIFA to corroding "universal principles"

Demanding that FIFA uphold human rights in Qatar, Russia, United Nations is outsourcing political judgement to a sporting institution that does not even deliver its sporting mandate in the first place.

Where Infantino/ FIFA should be exposed is

Infantino may be morally repulsive but he is one hell of a strategist. He is responding to a world in which the liberal order is increasingly lacking universal consent. If the UNGA can no longer maintain unanimity on Russia, why should a sporting body be expected to hold the line on its behalf?

When I was in Nairobi and interacted with footballers it was very clear to me that the oppressed are often more realistic about power than their advocates. The further someone is from consequences, the more idealist their politics becomes.

In this environment, the abolitionists’ perspective (those who argue for fewer tournaments, smaller budgets, no mega-stadiums) get treated as heretical. Critique is tolerated insofar as it ultimately reinforces the system’s necessity.

So whenever reformists try to change FIFA from within its own moral language, they end up appealing to the very theology FIFA authored. FIFA’s power rests on the claim that football is a universal social good, (Remember Infantino with the ball at Davos?)

And the contradictory thing about all of this is that the system (FIFA) the fundamentalists/ reformists want to change, proselytizes the doctrine of football fundamentalism. The language of “growing the game,” “football for hope”, bans and suspensions are all chapters in FIFA’s Holy book.

They debate about how football should be governed, but not whether football deserves the level of political, economic, and symbolic investment it commands, especially in materially constrained societies.

I think at the core of it all, the problem with critical football discourse is that even the ones who want the best for football governance are football fundamentalists.

It individualises and moralises what are fundamentally structural and political phenomena, presenting “corruption” as deviations from a neutral system rather than as predictable outcomes of how global capitalist systems work.

Liberal framing prefers scandal over system because scandal preserves the idea that reform, transparency, or exposure is the solution.

a man in a suit and tie is standing in front of a snl sign ALT: a man in a suit and tie is standing in front of a snl sign

Black folks seeing the violence in the land of the free and the brave labeled as “unusual” or “unprecedented.

Anyone thinking Diaz deliberately missed has forgotten how much of a stink he raised, effectively lobbying VAR to review the foul.

He demanded that penalty, he got that penalty, he missed that penalty.

Such a dramatic game that it’s largely gone unnoticed that Morocco have been playing with 10 men.

The inconsistent officiating, the walking out of the pitch. All of it. It speaks volume on how CAF is run. Also, European *born* stars

It is not a serious institution 😂

This AFCON final is the best encapsulation of the state of the Confederation of African Football. A sham of an institution.

CHAN: A Tournament Built on the Failures of African Football - Interstice Recently, East Africa has been abuzz with kerfuffles, drama and brouhaha that come with hosting an international football tournament in Africa. From presidential decrees of hefty player bonuses, ticke...

I’m reposting this piece where I argued that the CHAN tournament was a confession of failure by CAF.
steffndei.com/chan-a-tourn...

CAF has cancelled CHAN, with Motsepe calling it a “financial black hole.” They’ve replaced it with Africa Nations League tournament. Unless the underlying political economy changes, the Africa Nations League risks becoming yet another illusion tournament built on top of the same broken foundations.

Outgrowing friends means grieving people who are alive.

Behind the stadium boom: Why foreign-born players fill African football teams A wave of stadium upgrades across Africa coincides with a growing share of Europe-born footballers representing African nations. Steffany Ndei examines how CAF regulations, state interests, and federa...

I have explained why these two data points (foreign born footballers and free tickets) at the biggest African tournament are a sign of a broken system in this piece 👇🏾

www.playthegame.org/news/behind-...

free premier league games don’t have fans. Here is why 👇🏾

www.playthegame.org/news/behind-...