Miguel Taboada
The history of football in Africa begins in the 1860s, when European soldiers, sailors and officials brought the game with them: the first recorded matches were played in South Africa in 1862. Within a century Africans had made the game their own, founding the Confederation of African Football (CAF) in 1957, fighting for a place at the World Cup and, in 2022, sending Morocco to a World Cup semi-final.
How did football arrive in Africa?
Football reached Africa with colonisation. The first recorded games took place in South Africa in 1862, between soldiers and civil servants, a year before the Football Association codified the rules in London on 26 October 1863. Those early games mixed elements of rugby and association football.
Organisation followed quickly in the colonies:
- 1880: the Pietermaritzburg County Football Association, the first official football organisation in Africa.
- 1882: the South African Football Association (SAFA), the continent’s first national governing body. It was a whites-only association, and in 1910 it became the first South African member of FIFA.
- 1890s: clubs appeared in North Africa, such as Alexandria SC in Egypt (1890) and CDJ Oran in Algeria (1894).
- 1929: the Alexandria Stadium, considered the first football stadium built in Africa.
Africans were also shaping the game abroad. Arthur Wharton, born in the Gold Coast (today Ghana), played in England in the 1880s and is widely regarded as the first Black professional footballer; we tell his story in First Black Professional Footballer: Arthur Wharton.
Egypt 1934: Africa’s first World Cup
Egypt was the only African country to enter the 1934 World Cup in Italy, and the first African team to play at the finals. The tournament was a straight knock-out: Egypt lost 4–2 to Hungary in Naples, but Abdulrahman Fawzi scored twice and became the first African to score at a World Cup.
It would be Africa’s only World Cup appearance for 36 years.
1957: CAF and the first Africa Cup of Nations
At the 1954 FIFA Congress in Bern, Africa was formally recognised as a football confederation. The Confederation of African Football was officially established on 8 February 1957 at the Grand Hotel in Khartoum, Sudan, by four national associations: Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia and South Africa. Today it has 54 member associations.
The first Africa Cup of Nations was played in Khartoum that same month. South Africa insisted on selecting only white players, in line with apartheid, and was disqualified. With only three teams left, two matches were played: Egypt beat the hosts Sudan 2–1 and then Ethiopia 4–0 in the final to become the first African champions.
South Africa would not play in the tournament until 1996, after the end of apartheid. That year it hosted the Cup of Nations and won it at the first attempt, beating Tunisia in the final.
1966: the boycott that opened the World Cup
For the 1966 World Cup, FIFA planned to make the African qualifier play off against teams from Asia and Oceania for a single place. The African nations refused and boycotted qualifying. The protest worked: FIFA granted Africa one guaranteed place at the 1970 World Cup.
Morocco took it. In Mexico they lost to West Germany and Peru but drew 1–1 with Bulgaria, the first point an African team ever won at a World Cup. From then on African teams were regular guests, and the milestones came quickly:
- 1974: Zaire became the first team from sub-Saharan Africa to qualify.
- 1978: Tunisia beat Mexico 3–1, the first African win at a World Cup.
- 1982: Africa had two places for the first time, taken by Algeria and Cameroon.
- 1986: Morocco topped their group and became the first African team in the round of 16.
From Cameroon 1990 to Morocco 2022
In 1990, Cameroon became the first African team to reach a World Cup quarter-final. Senegal matched the feat in 2002 and Ghana in 2010, the year South Africa became the first African country to host the World Cup, from 11 June to 11 July 2010, after FIFA chose it over Egypt and Morocco.
The ceiling was finally broken in Qatar in 2022, when Morocco reached the semi-finals and finished fourth: the best result by an African team in the history of the World Cup.
Olympic gold, a Ballon d’Or and the club game
- Atlanta 1996: Nigeria beat Argentina 3–2 in the final and became the first African country to win Olympic gold in football. Cameroon won it again in Sydney in 2000.
- 1995: Liberia’s George Weah won the Ballon d’Or and FIFA World Player of the Year, and is still the only African to have won either award. He later served as President of Liberia from 2018 to 2024.
- Clubs: CAF launched the African Cup of Champions Clubs in 1964, rebranded as the CAF Champions League in 1997. In 2010 TP Mazembe of DR Congo reached the final of the FIFA Club World Cup, where they lost to Inter Milan.
Women’s football in Africa
Women’s leagues appeared in Nigeria in the 1970s, but for decades male-run football associations gave them little support. More women began to play in the 1990s, especially in Nigeria and South Africa. In 1998 CAF introduced an official African Women’s Championship; the hosts, Nigeria, won it and went on to take five titles in a row. A year later, Nigeria reached the quarter-finals of the 1999 Women’s World Cup.
Why this history matters
African football is usually said to begin when Europeans arrived, but ball games, running and wrestling were part of African life thousands of years earlier, as we explain in Sports Invented in Africa: 10 Games with Ancient Roots. And the struggle over who could play, from SAFA’s colour bar to South Africa’s exclusion in 1957, mirrors the wider fight against racial barriers in sport that runs through the story of Africa’s first Olympic champions.
Claudine Boothe’s documentary The African History of Sport (2018) traces the African origins of Olympic and popular sports and pays tribute to the athletes who challenged the notion of racial supremacy.
Frequently asked questions
When did football start in Africa?
The history of football in Africa starts in the 1860s. The first recorded games were played in South Africa in 1862 between soldiers and civil servants, and the first official football organisation, the Pietermaritzburg County Football Association, was founded in 1880.
Which was the first African team at a World Cup?
Egypt, at the 1934 World Cup in Italy. They lost 4–2 to Hungary in Naples, and Abdulrahman Fawzi scored twice to become the first African to score at the World Cup finals.
When was CAF founded?
The Confederation of African Football was officially established on 8 February 1957 in Khartoum, Sudan, by Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia and South Africa. The first Africa Cup of Nations was played there the same month and won by Egypt.
What is the best result by an African team at the World Cup?
Fourth place, achieved by Morocco at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, the first time an African team reached the semi-finals. Before that, Cameroon (1990), Senegal (2002) and Ghana (2010) had reached the quarter-finals.
Who is the only African to win the Ballon d’Or?
George Weah of Liberia, who won the Ballon d’Or and FIFA World Player of the Year in 1995. He later became President of Liberia.
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