The alternative guide to AFCON 2024: The Hosts
The 2024 edition of the Africa Cup of Nations kicked off on January 13, amidst rising backlash due to the tournament's ties to Total Energies. Claims of sports washing have dogged the continent's premier sports showpiece event as a consequence of its continued association with the French fossil fuel energy giant.
Here at Open Parly UG we believe African football fans, many of whom vote for despots, can contend with more than one truth at once; namely that the criticism of the tournament’s ties with Big Oil have merit even though the tournament has a rich Pan African history and heritage worth celebrating. In this spirit we present the Open Parly Ug alternative guide to AFCON 2024. This guide, it should be said , should not be read for betting tips, as most Africans of voting age should know by now, the House always wins.
The Hosts: Cote D' Ivoire/Ivory Coast- The Elephants
Star Player: Wilfred Zaha, right winger
Strengths: Home crowd, won it as hosts in 1992
Weakness: Don't always play as a team
The Elephants host the latest edition of AFCON and are 2 time champions including in 1992 when they won it as hosts, no doubt this bodes well. Home crowd advantage is often decisive in AFCON and like an incumbent in an African election, the odds are typically in favour of the hosts. Perhaps the only cloud on the horizon is whether the hosts can play as a unit, a team. Much like the country's recent history, it remains to be seen whether the ethnic diversity of the team will be harnessed for victory.
Previous generation's of the Elephants harnessed their diversity for the greater good beyond the pitch and offered a shining light in this regard even in the dark days under Laurent Ggabo when the nation fought a bloody civil war over the question of who is Ivorian. Not many teams have won AFCON but even fewer have leveraged their triumph on the pitch to lead peace building efforts during a civil war quite like the Elephants class of 2005. It is this rich heritage that precedes the hosts, their countrymen expect them to rise to the occasion.
Open ParlyUg is a youth focused online platform that seeks to bridge the gap between young people in Uganda and Parliament and is a partnership between Wizarts Foundation, CEPA and Magamba Network.
