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Perspectives: is an essay series and interviews dedicated to bring sociological, political, economical and cultural thoughts on the game by experts, local actors, thinkers, and researchers. These essays are designed to start conversations, understand the new issues and give policy-oriented takeaways.

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The Long Ascent: Women's Football
and the Meaning of the Africa Cup of Nations

Research by Marvin Heilbronn

July 5, 2025

Introduction

The 2025 CAF Women’s Africa Cup of Nations (WAFCON), hosted in Morocco, is more than a continental competition. It represents the most visible and institutionally significant platform for women’s football in Africa. A tournament where histories converge, futures are imagined, and the structural limits of the sport on the continent are laid bare.

In its 13th edition, WAFCON continues to reflect the contradictory realities of African women’s football: undeniable progress in talent, visibility, and competitiveness, set against persistent governance failures, funding inequalities, and institutional neglect. To understand what is at stake this year and what WAFCON has come to represent, one must begin with its roots, which run far deeper than its formal inception in 1998.

Origins: A History Built in the Margins

Dennis Liwewe, iconic Zambian commentator, once remarked that when Dr. David Livingstone, a Scottish missionary, physician, and explorer, first arrived in Zambia, he carried three things in his bag: "his medical kit, the Bible, and a football". Despite the fact that there is no historical evidence that Livingstone ever brought a football with him, in Liwewe’s telling, the myth gestures toward a deeper truth. His claim captures the symbolic origins of football in Africa, introduced through the unequal and often violent encounters between European colonizers and African societies. While the legacies of other impositions of colonialization, such as Western medicine and Christianity, remain deeply complex and contested, the impact of football is less ambivalent. It is, without rival, Africa’s game. And unlike science or religion, this colonial import has been reclaimed by Africans and turned into a lasting emblem of pride and independence (Goldblatt, 2008).

Football’s arrival in Africa was far from a neutral pastime or form of entertaining competition. For missionaries and colonial officials, sport functioned as a tool for shaping behavior and instilling discipline, especially among young people. The structured nature of football, with its clear rules, boundaries, and referees, mirrored the social order that colonial powers sought to impose. European administrators often took on the role of match officials, reinforcing their authority not only within the game but across broader systems of control (Onwumechili, 2024). Equally important was the way European colonial systems introduced rigid ideas about gender and physical activity. Sports like football were cast firmly as masculine domains, while women’s participation was viewed as deviant or inappropriate. Joanna Welford and Tess Kay (2007), building on Nancy Theberge’s 1977 analysis of the construction of gender in sport, argue that sport has historically been structured to reflect and reinforce male dominance; women, when permitted to take part, were only allowed under conditions that upheld stereotypes of fragility and weakness.

Organized Women’s football in Africa predates CAF-sanctioned tournaments by decades. Its earliest expressions emerged during the colonial period, when women were enlisted to play in public exhibition matches framed as fundraising efforts for the war fronts during the World Wars. With many young men conscripted into military service, colonial administrators sought to maintain public morale and generate financial support by staging football matches in which women were presented as temporary stand-ins. These matches were not intended to promote women’s participation in sport but were designed to capitalise on the public’s enthusiasm for football in the absence of male players. While the official justification centered on wartime necessity, the matches reinforced the notion that women’s involvement in football was a spectacle rather than a legitimate athletic pursuit.

Over time, however, the women taking part began to develop genuine interest in the game. What began in the 1920s as novelty events drew large crowds, and within these performances, moments of serious skill and competition emerged. Some women displayed growing aptitude for the sport and began to attract recognition from spectators. Although their participation remained tightly controlled, these early games created spaces, however limited, in which women could engage with football on their own terms. After the first World War, such exhibition matches continued, often tied to charitable or civic fundraising, and they left behind a quiet but significant legacy: an early record of African women playing football publicly, even as formal recognition remained out of reach.

As interest in football deepened, women began forming organized teams outside of the loosely assembled squads used for wartime exhibitions. Some trained in all-female settings, while others joined male teams for practice ses sions, often under the supervision of male coaches. This pattern was most clearly documented in colonial Nigeria, where references to early women's football are abundant and unequivocal. As the dominant nation in the history of women’s football in Africa, it had already seen the formation of women’s teams playing against each other as early as 1943, according to the extensive work of Chukwuka Onwumechili, leading expert on Women’s football in Africa and current Interim Dean at Howard University (2011, 2021b).

These aforementioned games were not novelty matches involving elderly men. Rather, they were competitive games between organized women’s teams. Historians Peter Alegi (2010), and Onwumechili (2021b) both highlight a 1940s match between two women’s teams in Onitsha, a southeastern Nigerian town. At the time, this town was not among the most developed in the country, and given this, it is reasonable to infer that women’s teams were already active in more urbanised centres such as Lagos and Port Harcourt. This inference is reinforced by a 1945 report in the West African Pilot detailing a cross-country fixture between the Port Harcourt Ladies “Thunderbolts” and the Lagos Ladies “Spitfires.” The existence of this match suggests a considerable level of organization and prior establishment for each club. Despite being separated by 377 miles and limited by the challenges of long-distance communication in the colonial era, the two teams had not only become aware of each other’s existence but had successfully coordinated travel and logistics to arrange a competitive game.

As Women’s football in Africa was beginning to gain traction, the Nigerian Daily Times on June 2, 1950, published a quiet but unambiguous announcement: a formal ban on the women’s game. The message was unequivocal: the men’s game was the one and only priority of the colonial government, and the Daily Times, as its state-aligned publication, actively reinforced this agenda:

“The Football Association, England has forbidden the use of grounds of its affiliated clubs and has ruled that no official of an affiliated club nor a registered referee may assist in the organization or playing of a match in which the players are females.” - Daily Times, June 2, 1950, p. 8)

Although much of the existing research has concentrated on the colonial ban in Nigeria, it was not an isolated case. In 1941, France also prohibited women from playing football and extended this restriction to its African colonies, enforcing similar limitations across its territories.

The colonial ban on women’s football had a measurable impact across Africa, significantly stalling the sport’s early development in many regions. When national football associations eventually turned their attention to the women’s game, they encountered a fragmented and uneven landscape. Countries such as Nigeria, Ghana, and South Africa emerged as early leaders, largely due to more extensive grassroots participation and longstanding local resistance to colonial restrictions. In Nigeria, this resistance was especially pronounced. By the time the British colonial administration formally prohibited women from playing football in 1950, women had already embraced the sport. The ban came too late to reverse the growing momentum, and Nigerian women simply continued to play, disregarding the edict. Their defiance was not isolated. Across several parts of the continent, women found ways to play in spite of official opposition. Though responses varied in form and intensity, a shared thread of resistance runs through early accounts of the women’s game in Africa.

In Nigeria, the 1950 ban did not prevent women from organizing matches and were conspicuously absent from the colonial government’s Daily Times, highlighting the political stakes of visibility. One example, reported in 1954, described a match in Sapele between the Sapele Girls Club and Anglican Girls School. The article noted the large crowd of women and girls in attendance and praised the club team’s technical superiority:

“This enthusiasm can be assessed by the large number of women and girls who watched the match … the Anglican girls were reckoned to be the best school team in the town but there was no doubt from the very beginning that the club girls are more superior in technique and their forwards are better players.” (p. 4)

Beyond Nigeria, similar stories of persistence surfaced from the ‘60s and ‘70s. In Cameroon, Emilienne Mbango played for Léopard of Douala in the 1970s, a men’s first division club in Yaoundé. Reports state that Mbango was a starter and often paired up front with Roger Milla, who would later become one of Africa’s most iconic footballers (Nkwi, 2023).

In Ghana, during the early 1970s, girls were playing in reserve squads alongside boys (Acheampong, 2022). Several of these players later joined some of the country’s first all-women clubs. South Africa offers further evidence of early grassroots efforts. In 1962, a group of high school girls in Soweto, led by Jessie Maseko, attempted to establish the Orlando Pirates Women’s Football Club, although the project was ultimately short-lived. A similar initiative in Cape Town saw the Mother City Girls compete before men’s matches and occasionally play against boys’ teams, often with success (Alegi, 2010).

Together, these examples demonstrate that while colonial prohibitions disrupted formal development, they did not extinguish the game. Across multiple contexts, women continued to organize, train, and play, often outside the boundaries of official recognition. Their persistence laid the groundwork for the eventual institutionalization of women’s football in Africa, and these early efforts remain foundational to the sport’s contemporary landscape.

From Informality to Institution: The Founding of WAFCON

Although no single body can claim responsibility for the global acceptance of women’s football, FIFA played an influential role. Its affiliated national associations were among the first to ban women from the game, citing social and medical concerns, and later controlled the terms of their re-entry. A major turning point came in 1971, when England’s FA allowed women to play on affiliated grounds, prompting other countries, including those in Africa, to begin lifting restrictions.

However, archival records from Ghana and Nigeria show that women’s football in these countries did not wait for permission from England’s or their own FA. Rather, women in these contexts continued to push forward independently, forming clubs and organizing matches in defiance of institutional neglect. In Nigeria, for example, girls were already establishing their own teams by the early 1970s, with clubs like the Adesukhumwu Ladies playing regularly without any formal backing.

Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, a more extensive network of women’s football clubs began to take shape in Nigeria, Ghana, Senegal, and South Africa. Nigeria’s development was especially robust. By 1989, more than 28 women’s teams were active across the country, all operating without official recognition from the Nigerian Football Association. The Nigerian Female Football Organising Association (NIFFOA), established in 1978, functioned as a de facto governing body. It coordinated fixtures, maintained informal records, and facilitated talent identification. In parallel, the Youth Sports Federation of Nigeria (YSFON) played a vital role in integrating girls into youth competitions and cultivating future national team players during a period of institutional absence.

Ghana’s national women’s team, later known as the Black Queens, also traces its roots to this era. By the early 1980s, informal women’s clubs had emerged in cities such as Accra and Kumasi, often linked to boys’ academies or supported by small businesses. These early efforts laid the groundwork for Ghana’s eventual formalization of the women’s game.

In South Africa, apartheid-era policies presented additional barriers to formal development. Racial segregation and gendered social restrictions made it difficult to organize sport beyond limited community structures. Yet, women’s football persisted in townships, especially in the Eastern Cape and Western Cape, where informal teams trained and competed without state approval.

Despite the visible growth of the game, national federations remained slow to offer recognition or resources. Most women’s teams during this period were self-funded. Coaching staff were typically drawn from unrelated sports or adapted from men’s amateur teams. Medical oversight was scarce, facilities were inadequate, and matches were scheduled on an ad hoc basis. Yet, in the face of these challenges, the game endured. It was sustained not by institutional support, but by the determination of the players, coaches, and community organizers who refused to let it disappear.

The push toward formalization came only in the early 1990s. In part, this was triggered by FIFA’s decision to stage the inaugural Women’s World Cup in 1991, which forced national federations to create women’s teams to participate in qualifiers. Nigeria, which had already developed the most extensive unofficial network of women’s football, sent its first national team to the 1991 World Cup in China.

CAF, however, remained slow to act. It staged unofficial continental tournaments in 1991 and 1995, both won by Nigeria, before finally formalizing the Women’s Africa Cup of Nations in 1998. That year, Nigeria hosted and won the tournament, beginning a run of dominance that would stretch over two decades.

From 1998 to 2018, Nigeria won nine of the twelve WAFCON tournaments held. Winning every final they played, scoring 223 goals across 73 matches, more than double the total of the next highest, South Africa (102). Along this record 73 match WAFCON final journey, Nigeria has only lost seven matches tied nine. The Super Falcons’ hegemony reflects their head start, built not through state policy but years of unofficial development and resilience.

Over time, the competition evolved. Initially contested by eight teams, WAFCON expanded to twelve teams in 2022, adopting a more rigorous format of three groups, with quarterfinals and placement matches. That year, Morocco hosted what was widely hailed as the best-organized edition in tournament history with record attendances, improved media coverage, and competitive parity.

Regional Growth and Emerging Competition within WAFCON

While Nigeria remained dominant through the 2000s, other nations began to close the gap. Equatorial Guinea broke Nigeria’s streak with victories in 2008 and 2012. South Africa’s Banyana Banyana, long considered Nigeria’s principal rivals, reached the final five times before finally claiming their first title in 2022. Zambia and Morocco have also recently emerged as credible challengers, the former through youth investment and international exposure, the latter through a deliberate federation-led strategy that has included investments in domestic leagues, coaching education, and club licensing.

Morocco’s recent success is the product of deliberate investment rather than chance. The country has significantly expanded its commitment to women’s football, increasing its annual budget to over 650 million dirhams (approximately 65 million U.S. dollars). New development programs and sports-study pathways have been established to support girls entering the sport. Infrastructure has been upgraded, the national league expanded, and dual-national players recruited from Europe (El Ouafi, 2024). These efforts and prioritization of Women’s football quickly paid off, with Morocco reaching the WAFCON final on home soil in 2022 after defeating Nigeria in the semi-finals.

Elsewhere, countries like Senegal and Ghana have seen mixed results. Both possess deep footballing traditions but face ongoing structural challenges, including limited domestic competition and fluctuating federation support.

This narrowing of the competitive gap, alongside recent data underscores how the women’s game across Africa is expanding beyond its traditional power centres. According to CAF’s first Women’s Football Landscape Report (2022), there are now over 150,000 registered female players, more than 4,000 female coaches, and close to 5,000 female referees operating under its jurisdiction. Forty-seven of CAF’s 54 member associations now field senior women’s national teams, a sharp increase from even a decade ago, and 91 percent of these associations run a women’s top-flight league.

This institutional expansion is being driven in large part by youth engagement. More than 70 percent of Africa’s registered female players are under the age of 20, and 82 percent of CAF member associations have partnered with schools to create structured pathways for talent development. CAF’s 2021–2025 Action Plan acknowledges this expansion and reinforces it with strategic support. Prize money for the Women’s Africa Cup of Nations has increased by 150 percent to $2.4 million, and the Women’s Champions League now carries a reward of $1.55 million. Nigeria and Ghana also continue to drive continental transfer activity, ranking among the top ten countries for outbound player transfers according to FIFA’s 2022 global report. These structural gains suggest that the women’s game is no longer on the fringes but increasingly central to CAF’s long-term vision and WAFCON has become the premier stage for this continental transformation to be measured.

WAFCON 2025: Stakes, Storylines, and Setting

The 2025 edition of the Women’s Africa Cup of Nations arrives at a pivotal moment. The last two years have brought unprecedented visibility to African women’s football. Morocco, Nigeria, South Africa, and Zambia all made historic appearances at the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup, where for the first time, three African teams advanced to the knockout stage. WAFCON 2025 is thus not only a return to continental competition, it is an opportunity to consolidate these gains and test whether the underlying footballing infrastructures across Africa can support sustained excellence. The stakes are high. Each participating team arrives in Morocco with a distinct set of ambitions, built on past breakthroughs and emerging national football cultures.

Nigeria’s Dynasty Faces a New Era of Pressure and Possibility

Nigeria’s centrality to WAFCON is indisputable. Nigeria, the most decorated team in WAFCON history, approaches the tournament with both historical authority and contemporary uncertainty. With nine titles and appearances in every edition since 1991, the Super Falcons have set the benchmark for African women’s football. No team has won more titles, produced more continental stars, or contributed more to the internationalization of African women’s football. Players like Florence Omagbemi, Perpetua Nkwocha, Mercy Akide, and Asisat Oshoala have defined generations. Oshoala, in particular, a five-time African Player of the Year, is emblematic of Nigeria’s global reach, having played for Liverpool, Arsenal, Barcelona, and now Bay FC in the NWSL. In 2023, Nigeria delivered one of their best-ever World Cup performances, including a draw against Canada, a 3-2 win over Australia, and a narrow penalty shootout loss to England. Yet the team remains plagued by institutional instability. Bonus disputes, last-minute preparations, and strained relationships with the Nigerian Football Federation have repeatedly disrupted player focus. At WAFCON 2025, Nigeria will not only compete for a tenth title but also for stability, clarity, and renewed leadership in a now-crowded field.

Equatorial Guinea Returns with Hopes of Reclaiming Past Momentum

For Equatorial Guinea, the 2025 tournament is a chance to reassert relevance. In 2011, they became the first Central African country to qualify for the Women’s World Cup, and although they exited in the group stage, their intensity and fearlessness hinted at long-term promise. Their participation this year will signal whether that early momentum can be reclaimed.

Host Nation Morocco Eyes Historic Title on Home Soil

Morocco, meanwhile, will be under scrutiny not only as host but as an ascending football power. The Atlas Lionesses' run to the final in 2022, followed by a group-stage escape at the 2023 World Cup, established them as the leading force in North Africa. Defender Nouhaila Benzina, who became the first veiled player to compete at a World Cup, came to symbolise the team’s fusion of modern tactical rigour and cultural pride. Backed by a federation that has invested heavily in coaching, infrastructure, and league development, Morocco will seek nothing less than a first continental title, at home.

Cameroon Looks to Revive Its Legacy

Cameroon enters the tournament with a rich legacy and a new challenge. Since their World Cup debut in 2015, marked by a 6-0 win over Ecuador and a dramatic run to the Round of 16, the Indomitable Lionesses have played with tactical boldness and emotional intensity. Players such as Gaëlle Enganamouit and Ajara Nchout Njoya have become household names, but recent cycles have exposed weaknesses in player development and administrative cohesion. A deep run in this year's competition would reaffirm their place among the continent’s elite.

South Africa Arrives as Champions, Carried by a Legacy of Persistence

South Africa, by contrast, enters the tournament as reigning champions. After five runner-up finishes between 1995 and 2018, Banyana Banyana finally lifted the trophy in 2022, overcoming Morocco in the final. At the World Cup the following year, they reached the Round of 16, defeating Italy in a high-pressure group-stage match. Their resurgence has been anchored by coach Desiree Ellis, a three-time CAF Coach of the Year and former player whose leadership embodies the long arc of the women’s game in South Africa, from exclusion to institutional acceptance.

Zambia’s Copper Queens Lead the Charge of Africa’s New Generation

Zambia stands out as the tournament’s most rapidly ascending team. Known as the Copper Queens, they entered global consciousness during the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, where forward Barbra Banda scored back-to-back hat-tricks. In their 2023 World Cup debut, Zambia suffered heavy defeats to Spain and Japan but responded with a 3-1 win over Costa Rica, their first ever World Cup victory. Banda’s 1000th goal in World Cup history was both symbolic and decisive. With Racheal Kundananji joining Banda as one of the most expensive African players in history, Zambia now has the tools to match ambition with results.

Veterans and Newcomers Round Out a Diverse and Competitive Field

Other returning teams include Ghana, whose Black Queens remain a foundational presence in African women’s football despite limited recent success. Their victory over Australia in 2003 remains one of the most celebrated early wins by an African nation on the global stage. Côte d’Ivoire, meanwhile, seeks to build on the foundations laid during their 2015 World Cup debut, where, despite heavy losses, the team earned plaudits for their resilience and tactical effort under coach Clémentine Touré. Senegal, Mali, Tunisia, Algeria, Botswana, and DR Congo round out the field — each with distinct strategic approaches, federation challenges, and tactical identities.

Beyond the teams, the setting of the tournament tells its own story, a deliberate effort to stretch the reach of women’s football across Morocco’s diverse regions. Casablanca, Morocco’s largest city and economic capital, provides international access and modern stadiums. Mohammedia, a coastal port city, links Casablanca and Rabat and offers proximity-based logistical advantages. Rabat, the capital, holds administrative and symbolic importance, representing the state’s investment in the tournament. Oujda, located near the Algerian border, extends the tournament’s reach into the northeastern region. Berkane, also in the northeast, further decentralises tournament visibility and is a growing hub of domestic football. Together, these five cities reflect Morocco’s ambition to decentralize the game, not only showcasing its infrastructure but widening its reach.

In sum, WAFCON 2025 offers more than a competition. It is a litmus test for whether African women’s football can transition from isolated moments of brilliance to a sustained, structurally supported sporting ecosystem. Each team brings its own narrative, of struggle, emergence, reinvention, or assertion. The stakes are not only sporting, but institutional. This is the moment where trajectories could crystallize, or falter.

Conclusion

The Women’s Africa Cup of Nations is a far more than biennial tournament to decide the best team in the continent. It is the culmination of decades of persistence, resistance, and grassroots ingenuity across a continent that has long treated women’s football as peripheral. From the earliest matches in colonial Nigeria and wartime fundraising games to the organized clubs of the 1980s and the global breakthroughs of recent years, the history of women’s football in Africa is defined by its struggle to be seen and its refusal to disappear.

WAFCON 2025 is an inflection point. The global football public is watching with authentic and sustained interest, and African nations are arriving not just with hope, but with the capacity to compete at the highest level. The field is more competitive than ever. Morocco, South Africa, Zambia, and Cameroon have all demonstrated that excellence is no longer the domain of a single team. Yet Nigeria remains ever-present, the most decorated nation in the tournament’s history and a foundational pillar of the women’s game on the continent. Their continued success or transition will shape how this next era is defined.

This tournament will test whether the momentum of recent years can translate into durable change. It will reveal which federations have invested wisely, which systems have developed depth, and which stories still remain on the margins. More than a showcase of skill, it will highlight infrastructure, leadership, and ambition.
Powered by Nike, Football Case Study will be on the ground in Morocco throughout the tournament to document the full spectrum of this historic moment. From the high-stakes intensity found within world-class stadiums to the rhythm of the streets before games, Football Case Study will follow the pulse of the competition wherever it beats. Over the course of the next month, Football Case Study will work to educate, engage, and connect global audiences through visual storytelling, analysis, and cultural inquiry that covers one of the most compelling tournaments of our time.

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