Africa's place in FIFA's global order: A theoretical frame

The increasing international significance of football and its governance has recently been recognized in academic circles, resulting in the publication of a number of notable studies examining the role of the game within global society. A common thread running through this body of work is the idea that football has become intertwined with a range of processes that have resulted in it becoming a major element of global culture. However, it was not until the publication of Sugden and Tomlinson's investigation into the development of the Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) that football‐related research has drawn, in a significant way, upon the analytical power of theorizing on the development of global society. The substantive material generated by their ethnographic and investigative approach is informed by themes and debates which lie at the core of the study of globalization and development. For example, notions of agency‐structure, domination and resistance, the national (and regional) versus the global and issues of power pervade their analyses. This article adds a new dimension to this belated development by drawing upon the copious literature on globalization and development in order to make some sense of Africa's place vis‐à‐vis the distribution of political and economic power within world football.