Amid the World Cup, the new pan-Africanism is conditional

By Afolabi AdekaiyaojaWriter, researcher, and political analyst.Published On 2 Jul 20262 Jul 2026SaveSharefacebookxwhatsapp-strokecopylinkSouth Africa's players react after losing the 2026 World Cup round of 32 football match between South Africa and Canada at the Los Angeles Stadium in Inglewood on June 28, 2026 [AFP]Before the June 18 South Africa-Czechia match at the ongoing FIFA World Cup, South Africa’s captain Ronwen Williams responded directly to online attacks against the players and the team. The criticism, primarily from other Africans, was directed towards South Africa’s anti-immigrant and xenophobic approach to residents from other African countries. He said he hoped football could unite players and that they should “enjoy and have a wonderful time, and we leave politics to the politicians”. The incident reinforced the growing conditionality that marks African support for African teams, a shift that has become more visible in recent years.Pan-African solidarity has long been a feature of previous sporting tournaments. Only a handful of nations participate in global competitions, and even fewer are competitive. That is why Africans have embraced previous deep tournament runs, from Cameroon (1990), Senegal (2002) and Ghana (2010) making the quarterfinals, to Morocco becoming the first African team to reach the semifinals in 2022. This solidarity has meant that even fans barred from travel by economic circumstance or visa restrictions could still count on the rest of the continent to show up in support.But the 2026 World Cup, where a record 10 African nations are participating, has shown the limits of this solidarity and the growing willingness of fans to judge teams through politics. The continent went on to enjoy its most successful group stage on record, with nine of the 10 African sides advancing to the round of 32 and shattering the previous best. While teams such as Cape Verde, DR Congo, and Egypt drew praise for taking points off stronger sides, and Ivory Coast and Ghana for actually getting wins on the board, others have drawn vitriol and isolation as a result of their domestic politics. Their teams, apolitical as they and their players might be, have become proxies for their government’s policies in a way that shows how political judgement now follows teams onto the pitch.South Africa has long been a symbol of African pride, from its efforts at post-apartheid reconciliation to its successful hosting of the first senior men’s World Cup on African soil in 2010. But it has also struggled to reconcile that legacy with waves of xenophobic violence directed at African migrants within the country. Movements like Operation Dudula have mobilised anti-immigrant sentiment under the banner of economic frustration. On the day of South Africa’s openingmatch against Mexico, the first batch of 268 repatriated Nigerian nationals arrived in Lagos. South Africa’s Home Affairs ministry said 586 Nigerians had been processed for repatriation. As Nigerians reflected on such actions, older citizens would have been bemused at Nigeria’s legacy of chairing the United Nations Special Committee Against Apartheid for decades or the “Mandela Tax”, the name given to the 2 percent that civil servants gave to a Southern Africa Relief Fund (SARF), which ended up raising $10.5m by 1977. That fellow Africans have been targeted in this way, while nationals of countries that did far less during the anti-apartheid struggle have not drawn the same anger, feels like a betrayal and points to a more conditional pan-Africanism. In this context, supporting Mexico became a way of holding an errant family member accountable, akin to speaking out against a perceived slight.Not every African team at the World Cup is navigating the same politics. Morocco, which opened its campaign with a 1-1 draw against five-time champions Brazil, has seen its continental relationship change since its extraordinary semifinal run in 2022. Africans across the continent rallied behind the Atlas Lions as they dispatched Belgium, Spain and Portugal, all with former African colonies, before coming up short against France. Morocco also gained support from its pro-Palestine position, alongside its former coach’s effusive statement embracing the team’s African identity rather than a more simplified Arab one. This was not straightforward, as other players took different positions, but Africans still embraced the team.Yet in the years since, Morocco’s contested position on Western Sahara and documented anti-Black racism towards sub-Saharan Africans have complicated that relationship. So has the dispute over the last African Cup of Nations final, when CAF stripped Senegal of the title and awarded it to Morocco. Morocco are officially African champions, but the legitimacy of that title remains contested, both in court and on the streets.The World Cup in the United States, Mexico and Canada has already been dogged by the domestic politics of the US, one of the host nations, especially a skewed travel policy that appears to have disproportionately targeted Africans. The most notable case was Omar Artan, a Somali referee who was named the continent’s best referee and was selected by FIFA to officiate at the tournament. Artan was held up at Miami for 11 hours and then deported because of “vetting concerns”, an incident that has been widely interpreted as a consequence of poor relations between the US and Somalia. Artan received widespread support and a hero’s welcome in Mogadishu, as well as the appointment to referee a match between the winners of Europe’s top club competitions. His experience and its cross-continental resonance illustrate what the new pan-Africanism looks like in practice: solidarity activated not by a shared flag but by a shared recognition of injustice. The same is true for fans of Ivory Coast and Senegal who were denied visas to attend the tournament, a grievance that spread rapidly online and drew the continent into a familiar posture of collective frustration against an external power.African football has always needed to “defend” its position and its viability. All 10 African participants joined other nations in issuing a joint statement pushing back against comments by Europe’s football chief Aleksander Ceferin that the expanded tournament would lead to a “lot of matches that are completely uninteresting”. But African sides have justified their inclusion with notable upsets and performances. Supporters online have actively questioned why support for all sides should be an inherited obligation rooted in shared geography and colonial experience rather than one rooted in reciprocity, legitimacy and shared cause. These distinctions are increasingly evident as Africans navigate different migrant experiences as well as regional commerce and diplomatic dynamics. Online citizens are not bound by diplomatic convention or norms; hashtags might not be official government policy, but these sentiments are every bit as impactful, especially in a culturally relevant space. What is emerging, in other words, is a pan-Africanism of the people rather than of governments—one that operates faster, holds states more directly accountable and does not wait for diplomatic summits to reach its verdicts.Football is the ideal lens for this transformation because international tournaments afford the space to explore questions that ordinarily could easily be submerged. Who belongs and who is welcome? Who is recognised and respected, and who is ignored? The contrast is revealing: two continental and economic powerhouses can no longer assume support, while smaller countries may receive it more readily. African unity and pan-African solidarity are still alive; they have merely evolved. This solidarity is becoming more reciprocal: not restricted to an elite consensus among governments, but rooted in the feelings and sentiments of people. Interestingly, football has historically provided leaders with opportunities to redeem their image through “sportswashing”; a new form of pan-Africanism might help invert this dynamic, allowing citizens to use football to judge leaders rather than allowing leaders to use football to polish their image.The group stage has now concluded, and the knockout rounds are under way. Senegal faced former colonial power France in the group stage before squeezing into the round of 32 as one of the eight third-place qualifiers — the expanded format that ultimately carried nine of the 10 African teams into the knockouts. South Africa, the lightning rod of this tournament’s politics, advanced from its group but then went out 1-0 to Canada on June 28, while Morocco edged the Netherlands on penalties on June 29 to reach the last 16. There is still the ambition that the aforementioned upsets and strong performances could see an African team go one further than Morocco’s 2022 run and reach the final, and maybe even win it. Social media will respond to such potential and possibly re-evaluate what solidarity to share. But this pan-Africanist fervour has become more demanding and more accountable. The terms have changed, and now everybody knows it.The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial policy.