Articles · Vol. 6 No. 2 (2010): Africa Review of Books, Volume 6, n° 2, 2010 · Pages 5-6

The Ivorian Pearl: The Life and Times of Didier Drogba

  • Adekeye Adebajo
    Adekeye Adebajo Executive Director of the Centre for Conflict Resolution (CCR) at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3656-3134 (unauthenticated)
    ADEKEYE ADEBAJO is Executive Director of the Centre for Conflict Resolution (CCR) at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. He is the author of Building Peace in West Africa, and Liberia’s Civil War (both 2002); and co-editor of South Africa in Africa: The Post-Apartheid...
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Abstract

The year 2010 saw South Africa staging the first football World Cup ever hosted by an African country at an estimated cost of $6 billion. As former South African president Thabo Mbeki – under whose leadership the World Cup bid was won – said: ‘We want to ensure that one day, historians will reflect upon the 2010 World Cup as a moment when Africa stood tall and resolutely turned the tide on centuries of poverty and conflict. We want to show that Africa’s time has come.’ Ivorian striker, Didier Yves Drogba, the reigning African footballer of the year, had similarly expressed his optimism in a 2008 autobiography, saying ‘I’d love to be the one lifting the Cup to the blue Johannesburg sky, proving I am an African at heart.’ The Ivorian pearl was keen to prove on the largest stage on the globe that the world was his oyster...

Keywords

2010 South Africa Didier Drogba football World Cup

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Author Biography

  • Adekeye Adebajo, Executive Director of the Centre for Conflict Resolution (CCR) at the University of Cape Town, South Africa.

    ADEKEYE ADEBAJO is Executive Director of the Centre for Conflict Resolution (CCR) at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. He is the author of Building Peace in West Africa, and Liberia’s Civil War (both 2002); and co-editor of South Africa in Africa: The Post-Apartheid Era (2007).

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Vol. 6 No. 2 (2010): Africa Review of Books, Volume 6, n° 2, 2010 →