YAYA TOURÉ, SPORTSMANSHIP AND THE AFFRONT ON AFRICA

The rise of celebrity culture is a theme that has attracted a significant amount of attention within the realm of sport and culture related studies in sociology. Indeed sportsmen and women were the pioneers of celebrity status in ancient Greek society. Associating sporting accomplishments with celebrity has now been magnified by the media and the ensuing debate on the celebrity-media nexus and the cultural changes due to globalization have acquired considerable significance in academic studies. In this essay, I endeavour to focus on Roger Milla and Didier Drogba who captured the hearts of soccer-lovers worldwide in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. I will try to capture the essence of the celebrity status of these two soccer icons by evaluating their images in relation to debates surrounding African soccer, sports labour migration and the state of the domestic game. It is my argument that the two rose to iconic status because they ventured outside the continent to compete at the highest level while still maintaining and contributing heavily to the success of their national teams. The career trajectories for Milla and Drogba reveal the dynamics and dilemma that potentially successful African football players have to negotiate.

This article appeared in a journal published by Elsevier. The attached copy is furnished to the author for internal non-commercial research and education use, including for instruction at the authors institution and sharing with colleagues. Other uses, including reproduction and distribution, or selling or licensing copies, or posting to personal, institutional or third party websites are prohibited. In most cases authors are permitted to post their version of the article (e.g. in Word or Tex form) to their personal website or institutional repository. Authors requiring further information regarding Elsevier's archiving and manuscript policies are encouraged to visit: a b s t r a c t Informed by academic writings on non-governmental organisations (NGOs), critiques of neoliberal development , and postcolonial development theory, this paper explores the relationship between football and development through critical analysis of two contrasting initiatives. One is the Football for Hope Movement (FHM), which was the principal backer of the official campaign of the 2010 FIFA World Cup (FWC), called ''20 Centres for 2010''. The second is the Katina 2009 football tournament held under the auspices of a community development project in Uganda sponsored by the Guardian newspaper and Barclays bank in the UK. The initial aim was to identify the particular development models at work within 'development through football' initiatives. While an established model of NGO-led community development is certainly apparent, different initiatives suggest a basic distinction between neoliberal and postcolonial variants. The paper identifies and explains the differences while showing how contrasting models become sites of struggle and overlap, to some extent, when translated into development practice. Ultimately, the investigation reveals how football is used as a magnet to draw young people deeper into the operational orbit of NGOs and their donors. The paper also draws attention to new actors and partnerships in international development – most notably the Guardian, whose transformation into a development actor suggests a novel 'NGO-isation' of the media itself.

Global Networks, 2007

Elite sport is the vehicle for global interactions via both its shared practices and the relations engendered by its governing bodies and its global tournaments. This capability has attracted the attentions of those seeking both nation-building and reconciliation in war-damaged nations. The narrative that follows has global implications, telling as it does the story of George Weah, a Liberian-born footballer who became a humanitarian ambassador, and later aspired to become his country's president. Weah's story informs debates on globalization, illustrating the transnational career of a man who developed a keen understanding of institutional politics and patronage and who allowed himself to be courted by various global figures. These scenarios took place in Liberia, a war-devastated African nation. This tale thus provides for reflection on how sport can encourage and undermine practises of nationhood. As a former World Footballer of the Year, Weah was a Liberian success story and well aware of his populist appeal. However, the issue of who a people are and who is to be their national political representative has proven to be a very fraught issue in the Liberian context. Whether global sporting networks have made the world smaller and the people more knowing in the Liberian context is an issue this article raises in considering its most famous citizen.

Management Decision, 2009

Soccer & Society, 2010

In El caimán de Kaduna, the Equatorial Guinean journalist and writer Francisco Zamora Loboch has constructed an African ‘everyman’ in his novel that speaks out against the manipulation of African footballing talent. Through the narrative voice of el caimán, an aspiring goalie from Kaduna, Northern Nigeria, the reader is introduced to the darker side of the blooming African football market. Although the focus of the novel is on the Spanish club, Real Madrid, the novel can be read as a cautionary tale for a continent of young African males who have become bewitched by the fame and fortune of role models such as Didier Drogba, Samuel Eto’o, Yaya Toure, Emmanuel Abedayor, etc. Behind this fictional account of the el caiman we find a parable that speaks of the larger truth of those who have gone to extreme lengths to pursue their footballing dreams In Europe. Zamora’s book shows the reader how many hopeful African footballers flounder on the way and, in the worst case scenario, end up homeless on the streets of the European metropolis or even behind bars. OCONNOR, M. (2016): African Footballing Fantasies: the (Dangerous) Call of Europe in Francisco Zamora’s El caimán de Kaduna. Continental Shifts, Shifts in Perceptions pp.87-95.

The scandalous events surrounding the 65th Fédé ration Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) Congress in Zurich in mid-2015 produced an enormous quantity of media coverage. While few have a deep level of knowledge of FIFA's history or governance, this global story worked effectively as narrativized media characterization by often constructing a comic view of FIFA President Joseph S. Blatter. Although often entertaining, this coverage mainly served to highlight the substantial failure of most of the news media, and especially of sports journalism, to deal seriously with the institutional politics of sport. This article analyses the media's roles and responsibilities regarding sport as a key sociocultural institution and the media's relationships with sports organizations, sportspeople, governments, commercial corporations, sport fans, and the wider citizenry. It considers the potential of sports communication and journalism education to change the dynamics of reporting everyday issues and eruptive scandals in sport. Ethical conduct in sport organizations and, particularly, in the hosting of mega sports events like the FIFA World Cup, should, it is argued, be addressed consistently by an inquiring and sceptical media. Above all, the media must beware of succumbing to the temptations of complacency and complicity in the games with which they are engaged.

İÇİNDEKİLER 05 • Önsöz 07 • Editörden 08 • Adnan Mahiroğulları (Prof. Dr.) Sendika-Siyaset İlişkisinin Teorik Çerçevesi ve Günümüzdeki Düzeyi 24 • Reşat Açıkgöz (Yrd. Doç. Dr.) Çalışma Ahlâkı ve Yoksulluk 44 • M. Akif Özer (Doç. Dr.)

This essay traces the history of South African women’s participation in competitive soccer from 1970 to the present and analyses power relations, namely race, gender and class, within the sport. Three distinct periods are identified: (1) emergence and development years from 1970 to 1990; (2) growth and transition years from 1991 to 2000; and (3) institutionalization years from 2001 to the present. This socio-historical analysis is based on fieldwork in South Africa and relies on qualitative interviews, participant observations and archival documentation. Special attention is given to the shifting racial demographics of women footballers, the influence of feminism and democratization in South Africa on increasing the numbers of girls and women in this masculine flagship sport, globalization of ‘women’s soccer’ and the organizational development in the sport at the local and national levels. Contributions of key administrators and leaders as well as players are briefly discussed.