Behind the stadium boom: Why foreign-born players fill African football teams

By 2050, more than one in four people on Earth will be African. This demographic reality shapes forecasts by The Economist that by 2030, half of all new entrants into the global labour force will come from Sub-Saharan Africa. Yet, despite Africa becoming the global demographic and – by extension – workforce centre of gravity, its football labour force is increasingly looking outward.

At the 2018 FIFA World Cup, 34 per cent of the players representing African nations were born outside the continent. By 2022, that figure had risen to 42 per cent. In the 2021 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON), 27.5 per cent of the players were foreign-born, a number that rose to 31.8 per cent in the 2023 edition.

Of the 603 players in the 2023 edition, 200 were foreign born with the majority of them (104) born in France. Cape Verde (14), Morocco (14) and Equatorial Guinea (11) were the chief scouts of foreign labour, and out of the twenty-four participating nations, only South Africa, Egypt and Namibia had squads comprising players born solely on the continent.

While these figures seem to be a bug in the trajectory of the workforce flow in the world, they are a feature of the governance logic of football in Africa. This article will illustrate how the actors involved in African football – states, football associations, and the Confederation of African Football (CAF) – each make decisions based on their interests and incentives, and how each of their decisions culminates in illusion tactics such as recruiting foreign-born players to mask the underdevelopment of African football.

The stadium obsession orchestrated by CAF is the best arena to dissect it.

The role of CAF

In May 2021, just three months after South African billionaire Patrice Motsepe assumed the presidency of CAF, CAF implemented a ban on stadiums that did not meet its stadium minimum requirements. As a result, 20 out of Africa’s 54 countries were left without a venue to host their home matches for the 2022 World Cup Qualifiers.

Countries with stadiums that perennially meet CAF standards, such as Morocco and 2010 World Cup hosts, South Africa, became the neutral host ground for the homeless. In the 2026 World Cup Qualifiers, seven countries hosted their guests on Moroccan soil and South Africa, which charges a fee to the vagrants, rented to five countries.

Faced with the risk of missing out on the nine slots in the World Cup tournament and the 24 slots in the Cup of Nations, member associations including those not backed by squad quality or historical precedent, are left scrambling for neutral soil while lobbying their governments to not just uplift the stadiums due to the loss of home advantage, but to also subsidise their trips abroad.

Due to the costly demands of intra-Africa travel coupled with the extravagant accommodation costs for team squads and personnel, countries end up expending incredible sums to honour just one match. For example, Kenya’s Football Federation divulged that it spent 21 million Kenya shillings, (approx 162,000 US dollars) to honour just one home game played abroad.

The infrastructural stakes are higher for countries seeking to host CAF’s tournaments: AFCON and the African Nations Championship (CHAN). CAF is the only confederation in world football that demands an explicit hosting and bidding fee from the interested nations and it presents hosting rights as a reward.

CAF argues that hosts will reap short term benefits from the jobs created during and in the lead up to the tournament (e.g., stadium construction jobs), and long-term gains in the improved infrastructure of stadiums and transport networks, a boost to the economy, as well as an entry into the league of serious football nations.

In the lead-up to the 2021 AFCON edition, Cameroon spent an estimated 885 million US dollars preparing for the tournament. Ivory Coast, host of the 2023 edition (played in 2024), reportedly allocated over 1 billion US dollars to meet CAF’s requirements, building five new stadiums and renovating existing ones while expanding roads, airports, and accommodation.

Despite assertions that hosting AFCON yields long-term economic dividends, indicators for previous host nations present a complex picture. The African Economic Outlook report indicates a modest economic growth rate for Cameroon in 2025. The growth rate is linked to domestic gas production and higher commodity prices and suggests a growth trajectory which is influenced by broader economic factors rather than a singular event like AFCON.

So, if CAF’s flagship tournaments and the infrastructural renovations do not present substantial returns on investment for African economies, why do governments continue to bid, build, and go into debt for them? One key explanation can be found in how nation-building and state legitimacy shape the choices of African governments and the football associations.

The role of states and football associations

When CAF was formed, membership was only granted to football associations from independent African states. This pan-Africanist requirement tethered the legitimacy of African football associations to their emergent states and vice versa.

As such, the collusion and collision of the state and the member associations on the continent is a structural design that CAF ratified even though it seems to be counterintuitive to the ethos of FIFA’s non-interference doctrine.

Furthermore, the fact that football was a pathway for agitators-turned-statesmen meant that the independent nation-states contracted part of their legitimacy to how well football was run, especially at the national level.

Consequently, the men who presided over CAF’s member associations after independence were – and continue to be – almost always senior civil servants, ruling-party loyalists, soldiers or businessmen with ties to the state. For example, in Burkina Faso, a Sahel state prone to coups, the removal of ex-CAF official Lazare Banssé’n August 2024 was a blatant military diktat, as his replacement, Oumarou Sawadogo, is reportedly the junta’s preferred candidate.

For many weak states, weak public services and low institutional trust have already damaged their legitimacy. Underdevelopment and neglect of other sectors make this problem worse. In these circumstances, football becomes one of the few remaining ways for governments to demonstrate competence and secure public support.

This dynamic makes FIFA's non-interference policy a structural vulnerability. When football associations embezzle FIFA funds, states cannot intervene without triggering FIFA sanctions that damage national team performance and thereby their own legitimacy. This asymmetry creates a protective space for corrupt practices within federations, whether or not officials consciously exploit it. 

In the 2016-2022 report of the FIFA Forward Development Funds, African member associations were the largest recipients, receiving 518 million US dollars in total. Out of this amount, 118.7 million US dollars went solely to infrastructure, with FIFA claiming that 94 new pitches were laid out.

Alongside funds for national teams and competitions, member associations also received funds for capacity development in education and training for coaches and referees.

The operating costs that the money transfers FIFA makes from Zurich are supposed to underwrite are routinely paid by the state. In other instances, they are invoiced to the very parties they are meant to subsidise.

For example, in Zambia – where the median living wage is 121 USD per month – the football association charges 215 US dollars for a CAF C license, which is valid only in grassroots, youth and amateur sides anywhere within CAF's 54 member countries. At most, this license allows a coach to sit on the bench as an assistant in continental club competitions, but it is not enough to be a head-coach of a top-flight or national team squad, nor does it carry weight outside Africa because UEFA, CONMEBOL and most AFC/CONCACAF members do not recognise any CAF licenses.

Local press across the continent continuously document – and often investigate – allegations that their football associations embezzle FIFA funds. These reports have led to court actions (Ghana), anti-corruption-agency probes (Sierra Leone, Liberia), and even FIFA suspensions or threats thereof (Kenya, Zimbabwe). A further diverse body of reportage beyond the continent also argues that FIFA's Forward program prioritises political goals over actual development.

Furthermore, governments or persons with political interests pick up the tab for leagues, clubs or local tournaments. For example, the Cameroonian federation appealed to the presidency and secured 560 million CFA francs (around 900,000 US dollars) to bail out elite clubs.

The net effect is that African footballers, clubs and leagues are trapped in a cycle of exploitation and neglect, surviving if and when they are politically useful.

The illusions that mask the underdevelopment

Due to the politicisation and neglect of the football industry, football players in local African leagues can hardly compete with their European-based counterparts in international competitions. In response to this widening quality gap, the strategy for African football associations shifted from developing domestic talent to recruiting it from abroad.

In June 2009, an Algerian-led motion at the FIFA congress successfully challenged the age-21 limit on changing national teams, lifting a barrier that had constrained players with dual nationality everywhere, including many Europe-born players of African descent.

A decade later, in 2020, Morocco led a second, deeper reform that allowed players to represent another nation if they had made no more than three competitive appearances before turning 21. In other words, players who had only played once for a national team, or appeared a maximum of three times before age 21, could now switch to represent a different country.

This effectively opened the door for athletes with dual citizenship or heritage ties to change their international allegiance. These successful national team rule changes have enabled CAF’s member associations to scour family trees, plucking from the lowest-hanging fruits in better-run associations.

African states are complicit in the charade and relax or fast-track nationality paperwork to capture diaspora talent. Tanzania and Ghana are good examples of this trend, and the result is an increase of foreign-born footballers in African national team squads, whose good performances on the pitch shield how member associations have neglected the dilapidated local leagues.

The performances of the expatriates also bump their respective nations up the FIFA rankings, giving FIFA a justification for the inscrutable FIFA forward development funds and a chance to celebrate itself for developing the sport in small countries like Comoros.

According to FIFA, Comoros’ ascent up ten places in 2024 was enabled by FIFA’s investment in a technical training centre and renovation of two stadiums. However, in Comoros’ most recent World Cup qualifier against Chad, its first eleven squad comprised ten French-born nationals. The match was played in Morocco.

Beyond boosting FIFA rankings, the performances of the foreign-born footballers also provide the states with a convenient justification for their investment in costly stadiums or CAF tournaments.

As for CAF, instead of addressing the structural rot in its member associations, they launched the CHAN tournament in 2009, which is reserved for players who are active in their own domestic leagues.

The initiative was launched to provide a national platform for players who cannot outcompete diasporans for international matches, yet it did little to confront the legal and economic structures that enabled the disparity.

In both instances where CAF did muster the votes to alter FIFA’s rule book on national team eligibility in 2009 and 2020, they chose to expand the pipeline of diaspora talent rather than stem the hollowing out of domestic leagues or reconfigure the economics of player export.

Contrast this with UEFA’s deployment of the legal autonomy, conferred by FIFA’s article 22, to create the homegrown player rule, which protects the interests of European clubs and domestic talent.

Meanwhile, South America has rewired the economics of export and ensured that youth academies and clubs which have developed a player during their formative years will still receive financial compensation – a percentage of any future transfer fee – even after the player moves to a different club. This means that the institutions which have invested in training young talent are rewarded for their development work.

Beyond the talent drain, the near absence of a functioning football ecosystem has left fans with little connection to domestic football. Add to that the hollowing out of purchasing power through economic mismanagement by corrupt governments, a combination of high match ticket prices and fan apathy has led to increasingly empty stadiums.

But since the show must go on, especially in matches where the state’s performed legitimacy is crucial and FIFA or CAF’s commercial stakes are higher, member associations and states end up subsidising and incentivising fan attendance through free tickets or even coerced attendance.

Charting a different path

Admittedly, in a previous article, my prescribed solution that African states bypass FIFA frameworks via the regional blocs in the African Union to govern football was idealistic if not outright naive, because the politicisation of the sport is a key reason why the football ecosystem in Africa remains underdeveloped and, all the parties involved in the charade have little, if any, incentive to self-correct.

However, there already exist examples of breakaway leagues that provide a model different from the current system. For example, in Nigeria, Lagos Liga, a private 7-a-side league, explicitly bars current professionals to keep FIFA-affiliated groups out.

African players, including the foreign-born should channel their considerable capital and influence into directly investing in and redistributing resources towards such independent leagues instead of e.g., investing in football academies that continue to take capital away from the continent.

As for the states’ investments in sport infrastructure, the role of civil rights organisations becomes paramount, especially in countries such as Ghana, Nigeria and Senegal, where such groups can and have moved the needle in matters of governance.

Alongside demanding that contracts for costly stadiums be made public and justified, these groups should advocate that state investments are channelled to critical and underfunded sectors such as public health and education.

If there is genuine interest by the states to be involved in sport development, such developments should be administered within ministries of education that can invest in school sports, physical education, and accessible community facilities for citizens.

Much as the burgeoning African youth may be a necessity for the rest of the world to function, the change of tides in global discourse surrounding immigration and globalisation warrants a change of mindset for how to develop, retain and redistribute the physical, intellectual and material capital within the continent.

The only way out of this long con is a pragmatic and strategic long game, which involves very little of the institutions selling our futures and very much of our collective effort. Otherwise, we risk replicating the very dynamics that got us here in the first place