The local game in Senegal is underdeveloped.
Mark Hann/GLOBALSPORT
European football matches allow African fans to partake in the aspirational dreams exported worldwide by the Premier League or the Champions League.
Alexis Sanchez celebrates Arsenal beating Chelsea in the 2017 FA Cup final.
John Sibley/Reuters
World soccer is the story of hyper-capitalism. What would fan and revolutionary thinker Frantz Fanon have thought about the state of the sport?
A fast-paced soccer game in Zambia.
Iain Lindsay
Getting involved in sports-based projects offers young Zambians a sense of community and helps them to build new support systems.
Reuters/Arnd WiegmannH
Several initiatives have been launched to foster a sporting culture more conducive to the involvement of women in South Africa, including new laws. But evidence shows much still needs to be done.
Latrobe Ladies Football Club in 1921, one of Australia’s first women’s football clubs.
State Library of Queensland
Women’s soccer had just found its feet in the roaring ‘20s when state ruling bodies began to force female players from the field.
Anna Armstrong
Everything is in place for a spending spree this January, but some data crunching shows successful spending is elusive.
Rainbow laces have become a symbol of football’s struggle against anti-gay prejudice.
EPA/Tal Cohen
Recent data on football’s homophobia problem met with both optimism and pessimism. What’s really going on?
West Africans who play professional football in Poland rest at halftime. Warsaw, Summer 2016.
Paweł Banaś/GLOBALSPORT
Many talented African footballers follow the exodus to Europe’s football leagues. But many are stuck in the lower leagues, without the glory and wealth they dream of.
Ververidis Vasilis / Shutterstock.com
The beautiful game has never seemed uglier. But it also can bring joy and togetherness, even to the most desperate.
Wales have made the most of more opportunities for smaller teams.
EPA/GEORGI LICOVSKI
New formats, new nations, a new UEFA president and the legacy of a multi-venue event in four years time – Euro 2024 could be a very different beast.
Paul Pogba helps France beat Iceland 5-2.
EPA
The marketing wizardry used by sports multinationals to sell these little round things by the truckload.
Reigning World Cup winners Germany will prove hard to beat at this year’s European football championships.
Reuters/Darren Staples
Based on goals scored at the 2014 World Cup, goals emerge when teams develop small and rapid passing networks comprising only a few players.
And so it begins …
EPA
France are favourites, Albania are playing and there are more teams than ever before. Your essential guide to Europe’s summer football festival.
Choosing the right tactics?
EPA/MARK
Xi Jinping is spearheading an extraordinary bid to dominate the world’s favourite sport. But will he take the Chinese people with him?
Smells like team spirit. Leicester captain Wes Morgan celebrates scoring against Manchester United.
EPA/Nigel Roddis
Egg roulette, terrible passing stats and the odd pizza. The psychology that builds success.
DerHexer/Wikimedia Commons
Making it into the world championships can depend more on your sport’s rules than how good you are.
Another day, another trophy.
Reuters
Whether the women’s U.S. soccer team wins its fight for pay equity, its existence alone shows just how much has already been won.
Try convincing Australian sports fans that Hawthorn’s dominance in the AFL is purely down to a cosmological coin flip.
AAP/Mick Tsikas
Sport is by its very nature unpredictable, and that’s why we love it.
Level playing field? Jamie Vardy causes panic in the Manchester City defence.
EPA/TIM KEETON
Moneyball tactics and a deluge of new money have served up a season of shocks and drama.
Will Smith as Dr Bennet Omalu.
Columbia Pictures
Once the stuff of tweeting birds and rolling cartoon eyes, bumps on the head are now linked to dementia. Will Smith’s latest movie tells how sports authorities tried to cover it up.