Race, Place and Soccer: Egypt, Morocco and ‘African’ identity in the competition to host the 2010 FIFA World Cup

Abstract

This article examines the legitimizing narratives that emerged around the bids of South Africa, Egypt and Morocco to host the 2010 FIFA World Cup. FIFA’s decision to place the Cup Finals on African soil for the first time forced the bidding nations to demonstrate their ‘African’ credentials. The bid committees of each nation were thus challenged to negotiate between narratives of modernity on the one hand, and the geographic, cultural, historical and racial imaginary of ‘Africa’ on the other. South African officials framed themselves as representatives of a shared African history of colonial oppression and modern development. For Morocco and Egypt, ‘representing’ Africa presented different discursive challenges. For Morocco, its Arab identity, close ties with Europe, and withdrawal from the Organization of African Unity in the 1980s; Egypt, meanwhile, had since the 1960s, claimed a leadership role in African affairs, but also used the racist logic of European imperialism to justify 130 years of occupation/intervention in the Sudan. ‘Race, Place, and Soccer’ examines the complex and very public re-construction of their ‘African’ identities by Moroccan and Egyptian bid officials, a process that laid bare the tensions and ambivalence of each nation towards the rest of the continent.