Football is the most popular sport in Africa and the world as a whole. Modern football was born in England  in the 19th century. It was only in the 20th century that football was extended to Africa by Europeans, this was mainly through mission schools and military forces.

Football in Africa was not organised until the Confederation of African Football (CAF) was founded by four countries; Sudan,Egypt,Ethiopia,and South Africa. The four nations had taken part in soccer at the international level prior to the formation of CAF. But the move gave birth to the inaugural African Cup of Nations the following year.

 The involvement of African countries in soccer has been huge and is basically improving by the day. At the highest level of soccer competition, the FIFA World Cup, African national teams have made known to the world that they take the sport seriously. They have shown their might by outweighing other nations, managing to display stellar performances and even reaching the quarters on three occasions. The countries have won the Olympic gold medals and FIFA junior World Cups.

 To date, various national associations have been involved in leading competitions in the region. Cameroon, Ghana, Cote D’Ivoire, Algeria, Senegal, Egypt and Nigeria have made major accomplishments on the international stage.

 Many nations in Africa boast of having their best players playing for premier clubs with some contending for top individual awards. Africa has shown signs that despite the lag in soccer growth, it intends to put in place better conditions for the sport to develop in future. Recent moves have even seen the shift of what started mainly as a male sport to greatly involving the female.

Some these players who have played in the premiere league form 1995 till date include: Tony Yeboah (Leeds United), Lucas Radebe (Leeds United), Mustapha Hadji (Coventry City and Aston Villa), Nwankwo Kanu (Arsenal, West Bromwich Albion and Portsmouth), Jay-Jay Okocha (Bolton Wanderers), Emmanuel Adebayor (Arsenal, Manchester City and Tottenham Hotspur), Kolo Touré (Arsenal, Manchester City and Liverpool), Didier Drogba (Chelsea), Yaya Touré (Manchester City), Samuel Eto’o (Chelsea and Everton), George Weah (Chelsea and Manchester City).

 Generally, soccer in Africa has gone through challenging phases with issues ranging from substandard playing stadiums to corruption among leaders of both national and local soccer associations. The domestic leagues have issues on management of finances which adds to the alarming levels of fraud at various positions of governance. This has made some payers who have dual nationalities(African/European) to decide to play in Europe as Europeans and deny the call from their respective countries.

 Conclusively, Africa can evolve in the sports of football by building good football fields, eradicating corruption in footbal and motivating or paying local players. This would encourage players from other parts of the world to gain interest in African football, thereby improving it's rating in the football archives