Challenge for the Ball: Elites, Fans and the Control of Football in Zambia’s One-Party State, 1973–1991

Hikabwa D. Chipande

Journal of Southern African Studies, 2018, vol. 44, issue 6, 991-1003

Abstract: Given the widespread popularity of football in Zambia, the poor performance of the national soccer (football) team in the mid 1970s triggered protests from fans and a decisive move by President Kenneth Kaunda’s United National Independence Party (UNIP) government to control the game. Kaunda was interested in football and his government played a role in the development of the game, but they also feared that their political opponents might use football as a vehicle for expressing dissent. This article examines how Kaunda and his UNIP government contributed to the development of football in post-colonial Zambia, how they attempted to control the game and how Kaunda tried to use football to shore up his popularity. It argues that despite Kaunda’s one-party state having authoritarian tendencies and control over most aspects of Zambian society, it never gained total control of football. This was because many ordinary citizens paid close attention to the involvement of authorities in the running of soccer and reacted forcefully whenever they felt that their game was being mismanaged. This further hints at the state’s awareness of its vulnerability if popular sentiment were to turn against the incumbent government.

Date: 2018
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/03057070.2018.1537164 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:cjssxx:v:44:y:2018:i:6:p:991-1003

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/cjss20

DOI: 10.1080/03057070.2018.1537164

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Southern African Studies is currently edited by Ralph Smith

More articles in Journal of Southern African Studies from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().