Category: Sports
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The Politics of Sports TV Rights
It is easier for me to strike a football conversation with a total stranger across a bar table than with my next door neighbour, with whom I haven’t had more than monosyllabic guttural acknowledgment whenever we happen to see each other, which is rare. A bar conversation finds common ground quickly even as we support…
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The Magic of Football: Peculiar Rituals From Around The World
Many rituals are performed around the game of football, and especially so around a major contest like the World Cup that recently concluded in Qatar. The juju practitioners are said to have had their hands full for the entire 28 days that the football showcase lasted. It applies to other popular events around the world…
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Remembering Harambee Stars’ Talismanic Jujuman
For a man who brought colour and pomp to matches featuring the national team Harambee Stars and his favourite club from western Kenya, AFC Leopards, it was unfortunate that he had to lose his life so crudely and cheaply; hacked to death by a machete-wielding gang outside his house like a common criminal. Isaac Juma…
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Sacrificing Harambee Starlets
When Nick Mwendwa replaced Sam Nyamwea as president of the Football Kenya Federation (FKF) in February 2016, one of his promises was to elevate women’s football in the country. And in counting his administration’s achievements, Mwendwa has bragging rights for taking Harambee Starlets, Kenya’s women’s side, to their first-ever Africa Women Cup of Nations (AWCON)…
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Football’s European Born African Stars
It so happens that players born in Europe to African parents are now choosing to play for African countries instead of their European countries of birth; Geoffrey Kondogbia of Central African Republic, Moroccan Mehdi Benatia, Gabon’s Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang were all born in France. Achraf Hakimi was born in Spain but plays for Morocco. This was…
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All Hail Aliou Cisse’s Lions of Teranga
When Mane stepped up to take the penalty, the execution was so powerful and precise that even Gabaski’s dive and stretch could not reach it. Mane hit the football with the venom of a man who was tired of anti-football, and as the net dangled from the power, the crowd in Paul Biya Stadium roared.…
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Marijuana, Testosterone, and Other Hurdles to the Olympics
In a world where gender identities have become polarizing, World Athletics is battling to find its place on the right side of history.
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