Portal:Football in Africa
Introduction
Football is the most popular sport in Africa, alongside basketball. Indeed, football is probably the most popular sport in almost every African country, although rugby and cricket are also very popular in South Africa. The first football stadium to be built in Africa was the Alexandria Stadium in 1929.
The English Premier League is the most popular sports league in Africa. The most popular clubs in Africa are Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester United. (Full article...)
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The Mali national football team (Bambara: Mali jamana ntolatantɔn, French: Équipe du Mali de football) represents Mali in men's international football and is governed by the Malian Football Federation. The team's nickname is Les Aigles. They represent the country at tournaments organized by both FIFA and the Confederation of African Football (CAF).
While Mali is a major youth football power in both Africa and the world, they have never qualified for any senior FIFA World Cup finals in history. They have qualified for the Africa Cup of Nations on 14 occasions.
Mali were suspended by FIFA on 17 March 2017 due to 'government interference' with the national football association, namely dissolving its executive committee. However, the side was re-instated by FIFA on 29 April after the executive committee was re-introduced by the Malian government.
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Rigobert Song Bahanag (born 1 July 1976) is a Cameroonian former professional footballer who is the manager of the Central African Republic national team.
Known for his defensive skills, Song usually played as a centre-back, but could also operate at right-back. Internationally, he played at a record eight Africa Cup of Nations tournaments and served as captain in five (the ones he was not captain for were South Africa 1996, Burkina Faso 1998 and Angola 2010), a record, and holds the record of most consecutive games played in the tournament with 35 first team games. He has won two CAF Africa Cup of Nations titles in 2000 and 2002. In 2009, Song was dropped as Cameroon skipper by new coach Paul Le Guen, who eventually appointed Samuel Eto'o as the new captain, which later caused concerns, as Song had never been on the bench in more than eleven years for Cameroon. With 137 appearances, Song also holds the record of the most capped player in the history of the Cameroon national team and has played in four World Cups, in 1994, 1998, 2002 and 2010.
Song started his professional career with Metz and helped the club to win the Coupe de la Ligue in 1996. After appearing at the 1998 World Cup, he joined Salernitana, newly promoted to the top-flight Italian Serie A. In January 1999, he left Italy to start successive stints with Liverpool, West Ham United and 1. FC Köln, but after failing to hold down a first-team place, he returned to France to play for Lens. He stayed there until 2004, before moving on to Turkey, where he spent four years with Galatasaray, winning two Süper Lig titles and the Turkish Cup. Song then signed a contract with Trabzonspor in 2008, where he won another Turkish Cup and stayed until 2010.
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Topics
Open tasks

- Expand stubs: Competitions in Africa • Organizations
- Expand club articles of teams from Africa.
- Expand biographies of Africans involved in football.
- Create: Requested articles • Most wanted football articles • Requested general football articles
- Add: Infoboxes • Images (General requests, Requested images of people)
- Review: articles currently under review
- Assess: Assessment requests • Assess an article
- Revert vandalism on this portal and on African football articles
- Assist in maintaining this portal and keeping its selected content up to date.
- WikiNews: Create and submit news stories about African football for Wikipedia's sister project WikiNews.
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Sources

- ^ "The History Of Soccer In Africa". NPR.org. 2010-06-09. Retrieved 2016-03-31.
- ^ a b c Alegi, Peter (2010). African Soccerscapes. Ohio University Press. pp. 1–2. ISBN 9780896802780.
- ^ Frimpong, Enoch Darfah. "Ghana news: A world of superstition, frustration and disillusionment - Graphic Online". Retrieved 23 September 2017.
- ^ Lacey, Marc (8 August 2002). "Kangemi Journal; For Spellbinding Soccer, the Juju Man's on the Ball". The New York Times. NY Times. Retrieved 2016-03-31.
- ^ "World Cup Witchcraft: Africa Teams Turn to Magic for Aid". National Geographic. Archived from the original on July 10, 2006. Retrieved 2016-03-31.
- ^ Andy Mitten (September 2010). The Rough Guide to Cult Football. Rough Guides UK. ISBN 9781405387965. Retrieved 2016-04-02.
- ^ "African Nations Cup overshadowed by hocus pocus | Football". The Guardian. Retrieved 2016-04-09.
- ^ Kuper, Simon (2006). Soccer Against the Enemy: How the World's Most Popular Sport Starts and Stops Wars, Fuels Revolutions, and Keeps Dictators in Power. Nation Books. p. 123. ISBN 978-1-56025-878-0.