On Saturday’s across East Africa, bars and makeshift video halls fill up with men watching English premiership football. It’s as regular and ritualistic as church and as a public gathering probably as important. In small towns, like the one I’m in now, a hotel lobby with a TV will fill to bursting right before kickoff. During night games, it’s the only sign of life in the area. Neither Kenya nor Uganda’s national team qualified for the Africa Cup this year, so it’s the teams from their former colonialist on whom people hang their hopes.
That last statement is a bit misleading. More than any other sport, English football is a global obsession and its top players seem to come from everywhere except England.. Manchester United and Arsenal, are the favorites across Africa and Asia and just about everywhere except Newcastle. Man U. is the biggest show on Earth, their minor games draw a global audience several times larger than the Super Bowl. Last night was a big game, a European semi-final against Barcelona. I watched the first half in a bar stuffed with several hundred men, many paying 30 cents admission since they couldn’t afford to drink. I’ve failed to become interested in U.K. football, even though it would help endear me to sources. I left at halftime but hear that when the game is over the roads out of town are packed with long lines of men walking back to the villages and displaced person camps.
Almost no one here claims a team other than Man. U. or Arsenal. Matatu drivers decorate their rides with the teams’ corporate logos: AIG for Man. U, Fly Emirates for Arsenal. One Englishwoman, who supports Liverpool told me the loyalty here is more to good football and whomever’s on top of the standings. When Liverpool was falling behind one man suggested that she switch teams. She told him it would be like him changing tribe.
P.S. Another story. This one’s in Fast Company.
