As Africa’s top football spectacle begins, continental attention turns to Ivory Coast for whom AFCON means much more.
Abidjan, Ivory Coast – Cocktails being named after popular African footballers. Street merchants draped in samples of the orange-white-and-green Ivorian flags stacked for sale on their shoulders. Women decked in the jersey of Les Elephants, the senior men’s football team, dancing in the market. Wire designs of balls hung as overhead street decor alongside signs flanking the road from the airport into the Abidjan city centre. Big screens going up at large open-air beer parlours or maquis, across the nation.
On the eve of the 34th edition of the African Cup of Nations (AFCON), host country Ivory Coast is agog with anticipation. Nowhere is this more evident than in its commercial capital Abidjan, the economic powerhouse of Francophone Africa.
While the goals the 24 participating countries score during the footballing spectacle will likely elicit the loudest cheers, the tournament is also a source of patriotic joy for millions in this West African nation, where football has often been a tool for unity.
On several occasions, legendary striker Didier Drogba has used his stature as one of football’s greats and one of the most popular Africans alive, to call for lasting peace in his home country.
In October 2005, immediately after Les Elephants qualified for their first-ever appearance at the World Cup, Drogba, surrounded by his kneeling teammates pleaded with warring factions in the ongoing civil war, to lay down their arms. That wish was granted within a week.
Just over two years ago, the former Chelsea striker again called for peace in his country following unrest that caused the deaths of nearly 100 people after President Alassane Ouattara – whose 2010 win triggered the second civil war – secured a controversial third term in office in November 2020.
“We are happy we can host Africa today,” says Brice Kouame, a patron at Blockosso, a lagoonside agglomeration of maquis in northern Abidjan, while sipping a Beaufort, a local beer. Having skipped the 2017 Francophone Games in the city, the last major sporting event the country hosted, the 27-year-old can’t wait for proceedings to begin on Saturday.
President Ouattara alluded to the potential reconciliatory role of hosting the Nations Cup for a second time – the other time was in 1984 – when he told the nation during his New Year’s address: “We must show our ability to unite, to make our country shine.”
His government has been busy ahead of the tournament.
In addition to a new shiny $260m, 60,000 capacity stadium on the outskirts of Abidjan named after Ouattara, several stadiums have been built or upgraded across four other cities: the capital Yamoussoukro, Korhogo to the north, the central hub of Bouake and dreamy coastal San Pedro near the Liberian border.
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