标签： Africa

The 2026 Women’s Africa Cup of Nations (Wafcon) wrapped up earlier this month with a historic final that saw Cameroon claim its first ever title against a resilient Malawi side, and delivered a clear message to global football: African women’s football is brimming with world-class talent. From Malawi’s Temwa Chawinga, who scored five goals and notched two assists in the tournament, to Cameroon’s tournament MVP Monique Ngock, the level of play on display left fans and analysts impressed. Yet one glaring question lingers over the Women’s Super League (WSL) — widely considered one of the most competitive elite women’s leagues on the planet: why are there so few African-born and African-based players plying their trade in England’s top flight?

This summer has seen a continued influx of global talent flocking to the WSL. Two-time Ballon d’Or winner Alexia Putellas, a core member of Spain’s 2023 World Cup-winning squad, became the latest high-profile international star to make the move, signing with London City Lionesses. She joins a growing list of global standouts who have chosen the WSL as their home: Australia’s iconic captain Sam Kerr spent years terrorizing defenses for Chelsea before her move to NWSL side Gotham FC, while top American talents including Alyssa Thompson, Naomi Girma, Emily Fox and Sam Coffey now represent some of England’s biggest clubs. In recent seasons, the league has also welcomed a wave of top Asian talent, with Japan captain Yui Hasegawa emerging as one of the league’s most impactful players at Manchester City.

Against this backdrop of growing global integration, the numbers are striking: only four African international players are currently contracted to WSL clubs. They are Chiamaka Nnadozie (Brighton & Hove Albion, Nigeria), Aisha Masaka (Brighton & Hove Albion, Tanzania), Rofiat Imuran (London City Lionesses, Nigeria) and Ines Belloumou (West Ham United, Algeria). This underrepresentation is not for a lack of elite talent on the continent, nor is it a lack of interest from top European and North American clubs. The U.S. National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) has actively pursued African talent in recent years, shelling out record transfer fees to secure the services of the continent’s top players.

In 2024, Zambian forward Racheal Kundananji made history when she joined expansion side Bay FC from Spain’s Madrid CFF for £685,000 — at the time, the highest transfer fee ever paid for a women’s footballer. Her compatriot Barbra Banda, who plays for the Orlando Pride, claimed the 2024 BBC Women’s Footballer of the Year award for her performances. The NWSL’s Washington Spirit currently counts six African internationals among its ranks, including 2026 Wafcon MVP Monique Ngock. Temwa Chawinga, whose five-goal haul turned heads at this year’s Wafcon, has already dominated the NWSL, claiming both the Golden Boot and MVP award in her first two seasons with the Kansas City Current. Her sister, Malawi captain Tabitha Chawinga, plies her trade for European powerhouse Olympique Lyonnais and led her underdog nation to a historic Wafcon final appearance earlier this month. Other top African talents, including Cameroon’s standout keeper Michaely Bihina, have secured contracts at top European clubs outside of England, such as Portugal’s Benfica.

Nnadozie, the only African keeper ever shortlisted for the Women’s Ballon d’Or, has already proven the impact African talent can make in the WSL. Since joining Brighton last year, she earned a starting spot and helped the club reach the FA Cup Final at Wembley, where they faced WSL champions Manchester City. So what is holding WSL clubs back from tapping into this deep pool of untapped talent? Industry analysts and players point to three core barriers: restrictive visa rules, financial and structural competition from the NWSL, and systemic gaps in scouting and tournament coverage.

The first and most significant hurdle is the United Kingdom’s Governing Body Endorsement (GBE) visa criteria, which sets strict eligibility requirements for foreign players looking to join English clubs. To qualify, foreign players must accumulate a minimum number of points across five weighted categories, which factor in senior national team caps, appearances in continental competitions like the UEFA Women’s Champions League, and the global ranking of the player’s previous club. For many African players coming from domestic African leagues, these criteria automatically disqualify them, as their clubs do not hold high enough global rankings and many do not compete in tournaments that count toward the points threshold.

Beyond visa rules, WSL clubs also face stiff competition from NWSL sides, who have been proactive in targeting top African talent and are able to offer more competitive transfer fees and wages than many English clubs. Additionally, WSL scouting resources are currently disproportionately focused on European talent, leaving little budget or personnel to identify and evaluate emerging prospects across the African continent.

A third critical barrier is the lack of consistent, high-quality broadcast coverage for African women’s football and Wafcon in particular. This year’s tournament highlighted these gaps: even after Confederation of African Football (CAF) named Channel 4 as the UK broadcast partner, no first-round matches aired live after the formal agreement fell through. The tournament was also thrown into disarray when it was postponed just 12 days before its scheduled kickoff in Morocco, eventually being pushed back three months. Switzerland captain Lia Walti, who joined Brighton this summer, noted that poor broadcast quality and access hurts the visibility of women’s football globally, particularly in regions outside of Europe and North America.

“I think you have to bring the game to the people. You kind of have to force people to watch it. I felt that was how it maybe started in England,” Walti told BBC Sport. “In a lot of other countries I think they have bad coverage. It’s not shown at all, or if it’s shown, from where they film the game [makes it look] really poor. It affects the way you watch a game. You don’t really see the speed, the tactics or anything and you don’t enjoy watching the game.”

This year’s Wafcon delivered no shortage of breakthrough moments that proved African women’s football belongs on the global stage. Underdog Malawi defied all pre-tournament predictions to reach the final, qualifying for their first ever Women’s World Cup in 2027 alongside champions Cameroon, and semi-finalists Algeria and Morocco. Tabitha Chawinga said after the final that the team’s run put Malawian football on the map, and proved the quality of the continent’s teams against all odds.

“It’s really the best. No-one gave Malawi a chance to be in the finals, no-one gave Cameroon a chance to be in the finals,” she said. “But as you can see, we watched fantastic football. There was amazing football from both sides.”

Nnadozie, who paved the way for African players in the WSL with her move to Brighton, says her 2023 Ballon d’Or nomination helped shine a spotlight on the depth of talent across the continent, and called for more opportunities for African players to compete in top global leagues like the WSL.

“We have so many good players and they just need the opportunity to show what they can really do,” she said. “Very soon, we will have more numbers [in the Ballon d’Or nominations] from Africa. Trust me, there are so many good talents from Africa. Some players have had the opportunity to come to Europe but some have stayed back home. I hope in the future, bigger competitions will come to Africa. The Under-17s World Cup is in Morocco. This is big evidence that they are doing a lot of great jobs over there. It is just a matter of time. Women’s football is rising and Africa shouldn’t be left behind.”

Senegal’s search for a new head coach of its men’s national football team, the Teranga Lions, has ended with the tentative selection of legendary former French midfielder Patrick Vieira – but multiple overlapping off-field crises have cast deep doubt over whether the 50-year-old will ever officially take charge. The Senegal Football Federation (FSF) confirmed Vieira had been unanimously approved at a Monday board meeting to fill the vacancy left by the sacked Pape Thiaw, beating out competing candidates including former Netherlands star Patrick Kluivert, ex-France coach Patrice Carteron, and former Senegal internationals Habib Beye and Oumar Daf. However, no contract has been signed, no official introduction date has been set, and negotiations over administrative and contractual terms remain ongoing. The situation is further complicated by unresolved friction over Thiaw’s dismissal: the former coach was fired after Senegal’s round of 16 exit at the 2022 FIFA World Cup, but the Senegalese government – which provides full funding for the national team – never formally approved the decision. Thiaw is currently pursuing claims for nearly $815,000 in unpaid wages and contractual bonuses, leaving a financial cloud hanging over the role. Compounding the FSF’s internal chaos, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) is set to deliver a ruling by Friday on a legal challenge to the 2023 election of the current FSF leadership, a dispute that has dragged on for more than a year. With the FSF board lacking government backing and public support, and facing the potential that CAS could invalidate its leadership entirely, the federation still faced urgent pressure to fill the vacant coaching post: Senegal is scheduled to kick off its 2027 Africa Cup of Nations Group J qualifying campaign with an away fixture against Mozambique on September 23, followed just days later by a match against Ethiopia. If CAS rules the current FSF administration illegitimate, Vieira’s entire appointment could be thrown out. Beyond the institutional chaos, Vieira brings his own mixed track record to the role. One of the most decorated midfielders of the modern era, Vieira enjoyed a legendary playing career that included three Premier League titles and four FA Cups with Arsenal, 107 caps for France, and winner’s medals at the 1998 FIFA World Cup and 2000 UEFA European Championship. Born in Dakar in 1976 to a Gabonese father and Cape Verdean mother, Vieira lived in Senegal until he was 8 years old before moving to France, and never cut his ties to his country of birth. Most notably, he was a key early investor in the Diambars Institute, one of Africa’s top youth football academies that has produced stars including Idrissa Gana Gueye, Bamba Dieng and Abdoulaye Seck – players who formed the core of Senegal’s back-to-back Africa Cup of Nations title runs in 2021 and 2023. Ironically, Vieira’s only ever on-pitch meeting with Senegal as a player came in the opening match of the 2002 World Cup, when the defending champion French side suffered a famous 1-0 upset defeat to the Teranga Lions, led that day by current coaching predecessor Pape Thiaw and captain Aliou Cisse. While Vieira’s playing legacy is unrivaled, his managerial career has yet to match that success. He began his top-flight coaching career in 2016 with MLS side New York City FC, guiding the club to two consecutive playoff berths but falling in the conference semi-finals both times, including a lopsided 7-0 aggregate loss to Toronto FC. He next moved to Ligue 1 side Nice, earning two consecutive mid-table top-half finishes before being sacked in December 2020. He then took over at Premier League club Crystal Palace in 2021, earning praise for his attacking playing style and leading the side to a 12th place league finish and an FA Cup semi-final appearance in his first season. But a 11-match winless league run in the 2022-2023 season saw him sacked in March 2023, with the club three points above the relegation zone. A subsequent spell at Ligue 1’s Strasbourg ended in a mid-table finish, and his most recent job at Serie A’s Genoa ended in a November 2024 mutual departure, with the club winless and sitting at the bottom of the league table. For Vieira, a potential appointment to lead Senegal would be a full-circle return to his birth country, but it would also come at the end of one of the most successful eras in Senegalese football history. After winning their first ever AFCON title in 2022, the Teranga Lions claimed a second consecutive title in January 2024, though that trophy remains the subject of a CAS dispute after Thiaw pulled his team off the pitch in protest of a controversial late penalty awarded to host Morocco. The squad now faces a transition period, with a new generation of young talent waiting to step into the void left by veteran stars including Sadio Mane, Kalidou Koulibaly, Edouard Mendy and Idrissa Gana Gueye. Whether Vieira will ever get the chance to lead that transition remains very much up in the air, as multiple legal and contractual battles play out in the coming days.

A celebrated former British sprint gold medalist turned top athletics coach, long reported missing after vanishing abruptly from his work ahead of major 2026 championships, is actually serving a 10-month custodial sentence in Morocco following a conviction for sexually assaulting a minor, BBC Sport can exclusively confirm.

Forty-one-year-old Leon Baptiste, who claimed 2010 Commonwealth Games gold in both the 200m and 4x100m relay before retiring at 28 due to chronic knee injuries, had built a respected post-competition career as a consultant sprint coach for UK Athletics, working with a cohort of elite British sprinters ahead of this summer’s Commonwealth Games and European Athletics Championships. That career came to an abrupt, unexplained end more than three months ago, when Baptiste cut off all contact with the athletes he trained and his colleagues at the national governing body.

In May, Baptiste sent only a brief message to his group of trainees saying he would step away from training sessions “for a while”, with no further details provided to explain his sudden exit. Over the past weekend, multiple media reports emerged naming Baptiste as a missing person, claiming he had disappeared without a trace while traveling in Morocco. On Tuesday, athletes received a short email of resignation on Baptiste’s behalf, which only cited unspecified health issues as the reason for his departure.

When BBC Sport launched an investigation into the conflicting reports surrounding Baptiste’s whereabouts, officials from the Moroccan Ministry of Justice confirmed the full details of the case, correcting widespread misinformation about his disappearance. “Claims that Leon Baptiste vanished under suspicious circumstances in Morocco are inaccurate and do not match the facts of the case,” a senior ministry source told BBC Sport. “This foreign national was not missing, nor did he disappear unexpectedly. He is currently held in Marrakech’s Al-Oudaya Prison, serving a custodial sentence handed down by Moroccan judicial authorities following his conviction on a misdemeanor charge.” The source also confirmed Baptiste is in good health, contradicting the resignation’s claim of ill health.

A spokesperson for the Moroccan Public Prosecution Office subsequently corroborated the conviction, the nature of the charge, and Baptiste’s current detention. In Moroccan law, a victim is classified as a minor if they are under 18 years of age. Baptiste traveled to Marrakech in May alongside three other retired British athletes, all of whom have since returned to the United Kingdom, multiple sources familiar with the trip confirmed. BBC Sport attempted to contact those three traveling companions for comment, but received no response. Baptiste’s immediate family has been aware of his imprisonment since the conviction, and the UK Foreign Office has confirmed it is providing consular support to the British national detained in Morocco, and maintains regular contact with Moroccan authorities.

Baptiste’s sudden disappearance left a cohort of leading British sprinters without their primary lead coach in the critical training period ahead of this summer’s high-profile championships. Those affected include Olympic bronze medalist Charlie Dobson and Paralympic silver medalist Zac Shaw. To mitigate the disruption, veteran sprinter Adam Gemili, a four-time European champion, and former relay specialist Martyn Rooney stepped in to provide additional coaching support for the displaced athletes. Even with the last-minute support, multiple sources close to the affected training group told BBC Sport that Baptiste’s unplanned exit heavily disrupted their training routines in a key pre-competition window, leaving many athletes ill-prepared for the upcoming events and frustrated by the lack of transparency around their coach’s departure.

UK Athletics has been contacted for comment on the situation, but has not yet issued a public statement. Baptiste was honored as England Athletics Coach of the Year at the 2023 Sporting Equals awards, just two years before his arrest and conviction.