News
Future of football
„Football guides us towards the future“ says Didier Drogba, Chelsea and the Ivory Coast football player, in the preface of a new book by photographer Páll Stefánsson.
The title of Páll‘s book is Africa – The Future of Football. A huge project which he has worked on for over two years. He has travelled, along with his publisher Kristján B. Jónasson of Crymogea publishing, to 25 African countries in 30 months. The concept of the book surfaced when Páll was photographing the Mosque in Djenné, Mali, for UNESCO:
„I‘m in the adobe village Djenné, photographing the biggest adobe building in the world, an eight hundred year old mosque. At the foot of the mosque is a market and in the market, bright and early, stands the first salesman, a young man setting up his tent, wearing a Chelsea T-shirt bearing the name Gudjohnsen. A few days later I‘m departing from Georgetown in Gambia, located 350 kilometers from the coast by the Gambia River, for Dakar, the capital of Senegal. I see in the twilight, outside the windshield of the car, the most beautiful sunset I‘ve ever seen. Red earth, red sky, and in the red dust, glimpses of straw huts, a village, where the whole village is competing in a football match bathed in the final rays of the sun. The joy, the laughter, the game, in some way so perfect. This was the true Africa, not the Africa we hear so much of in the news, famine and endless conflict and killings.“
Introduction
By Didier Drogba
Football is a fascinating game. No matter what the circumstances – whether it is the world's top footballers in a stadium packed with thousands of fans, or a small group of children passing time on the beach – the rules are always the same. There is a ball, and there are goals. That simplicity is why football is, by far, the most popular sport in the world.
On the streets, beaches and fields of Africa, sometimes that ball could be made of dried palm leaves, rocks, rags or plastic bags. The goals could be marked by rocks or sticks. But once you have these essentials in place, everything beyond that is up to the skill and desire of the players.
African footballers get used to playing in varied conditions from a young age and that helps them to develop strength and endurance. In the narrow streets of Cairo, the fields of Senegal, or at Le Félicia in Abidjan, the game is played with passion and power that is breathtaking to behold. The goals come only through determination.
People should know that Africa is a footballing continent above all else. While news images making their way out of the continent often focus on the negatives, the reality in many places is that there are many positives as well and it is no exaggeration to say that football plays a key role in bringing people together and lifting them up. Players who grace the top teams in the world, like Michael Essien, Samuel Eto'o, Yaya Toure, and many others, are helping to build the continent's image abroad. We are ambassadors, but we are also standard-bearers with a responsibility for maintaining Africa's believe in sport as a positive force for the future.
This book is a celebration of African football, and also of the children who are the future of our continent.