In the central African country, football clubs have long been a way for the regime in power to build political capital. Many politicians involve themselves with clubs to bolster their image. On the other hand, football is also a space for political opposition.<\/p>\n
In\u00a0our recent paper, we show how politics and football come together in a number of ways in Kinshasa, the country\u2019s capital city.<\/p>\n
Football was particularly important for Joseph Kabila\u2019s regime, from 2001 to 2019. His was a\u00a0contested and repressive regime. Throughout his tenure as president, Kabila and his party members looked for ways to improve their reputation to gain votes. One way was by financially supporting football clubs. This worked because these clubs don\u2019t have structural or sufficient commercial or state support.<\/p>\n
But\u00a0our study finds\u00a0that football politics can also work against a regime. During the Kabila years, football stadiums and supporter crowds offered a relatively safe place to protest the repressive regime. Anti-Kabila songs, for example, were often heard at matches.<\/p>\n
Football and power<\/p>\n
Our interviews with supporters, regime figures and others found that during the Kabila years, supporters and club officials made a distinction between regime figures supporting the club, and the regime. A common statement we heard was:<\/p>\n
supporters still appreciated Kabila-associated politicians as long as they were able to provide financial support.<\/em><\/p>\n Gabriel Amisi (commonly known as Tango Four), for example, was a close ally of Kabila\u2019s and currently serves as an\u00a0army general and inspector general of the Congolese army. Amisi has been accused of a wide range of human rights abuses during his time as a\u00a0rebel commander\u00a0and an\u00a0army commander. One press article describes him as \u201cthe butcher of Eastern Congo\u201d.<\/p>\n Between 2007 and 2020, Amisi was president of the AS Vita Club, one of the biggest clubs in Kinshasa. Before 2007, the team was performing poorly. Under Amisi\u2019s leadership, the team won three national titles and excelled internationally. Players remember his leadership as providing financial stability, with regular and good salaries, and material supplies.<\/p>\n This made him very popular. When Amisi tried to resign in 2012 after AS Vita Club\u2019s elimination from the national league, the team\u2019s management and club supporters didn\u2019t accept his submission. When protests began against the Kabila regime in\u00a02016\u00a0in Kinshasa, AS Vita supporters protected Amisi\u2019s house.<\/p>\n Human Rights Watch\u00a0has documented how Amisi (and other elite figures) used youth league members of football clubs to infiltrate protests against the Kabila regime \u201cand incite protesters to loot and commit violence\u201d.<\/p>\n An association with regime figures gives football clubs advantages, such as protection from prosecution if supporters are caught up in stadium violence. This makes it unattractive for clubs to associate with opposition figures, who generally have less money to invest and less political power.<\/p>\n In this way, Congolese football isn\u2019t very different from football elsewhere in the world. It has been shown how\u00a0worldwide\u00a0\u2013 not only on the\u00a0African continent, but in a variety of places such as\u00a0Turkey, Indonesia\u00a0and\u00a0Malta\u00a0\u2013 football helps regimes to reproduce their hegemony, particularly by creating political capital.<\/p>\n Football and protest<\/p>\n But the opposite has also been shown. Football has played an important role in contesting power. It has, for example, played a role in decolonising struggles in\u00a0Zimbabwe,\u00a0Zanzibar\u00a0and\u00a0Congo-Brazzaville; and in the\u00a0Arab spring\u00a0in the 2010s.<\/p>\n These dynamics also played out in Kinshasa, where football supporters participated in decolonisation struggles. On\u00a016 June 1957, a match between Kinshasa\u2019s FC Leopoldville and Belgium\u2019s Union Saint Gilloise de Bruxelles led to the first riots leading up to independence. A year and a half later, AS Vita Club supporters played\u00a0an important role\u00a0in decisive riots against colonial authorities. In 1960, the DRC got its independence from Belgium.<\/p>\n In the postcolonial period, football has also played a role in challenging power. During the Kabila regime, as\u00a0political repression escalated\u00a0in almost every other space, the football stadium became an important venue for political protest.<\/p>\n In the words of a soccer fan in\u00a0our study:<\/p>\n Since we\u2019re in the stadium, we won\u2019t be arrested. The police knows this: they won\u2019t try anything because we\u2019re way more numerous than them.<\/em><\/p>\n The lyrics of protest songs and slogans \u2013 referred to as \u201chymns of the oppressed\u201d \u2013 included: \u201cGod is doing everything so that Kabila dies!\u201d and \u201cEeeh, we refuse (to be) the voting machine\u201d.<\/p>\n During\u00a0the \u201cslippage\u201d period\u00a0from 2015 onwards \u2013 when Kabila went beyond the formal limits of his mandate \u2013 anti-Kabila slogans became even more popular.<\/p>\n The engagement of regime figures with soccer clubs didn\u2019t overcome hostile feelings about the regime.<\/p>\n Regime controls<\/p>\n The impact of these confrontations of regime power was limited, though.<\/p>\n For example, during the Kabila regime, radio and TV stations would cut their broadcasting when political songs were sung during games involving the national team. And in late 2016, the minister of sports\u00a0temporarily suspended\u00a0the national football competition. The official reason for this was \u201cexcessive violence in the stadiums\u201d. But it was widely understood as a political measure by the regime, fearing protests by supporters in reaction to the end of Kabila\u2019s official mandate during this period. The former minister confirmed this to us during interviews.<\/p>\n In sum, football in Kinshasa is politics \u2013 but primarily regime politics. Even though political opposition can be expressed through football, it is questionable how much potential for change this carries.<\/p>\n During the authoritarian Kabila regime, the protest role of football was confined. It\u2019s similar under the current Felix Tshisekedi regime, which uses football as a political tool. Kinshasa\u2019s main clubs (Daring Club Motema Pembe and AS Vita), for example, have club presidents who are close allies of Tshisekedi.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In the central African country, football clubs have long been a way for the regime in power to build political capital. Many politicians involve themselves with clubs to bolster their image. On the other hand, football is also a space for political opposition. In\u00a0our recent paper, we show how politics and football come together in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":17132,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"source_name":"","source_url":"","via_name":"","via_url":"","override_template":"0","override":[{"template":"1","single_blog_custom":"","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"1","show_view_counter":"1","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"0","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"override_image_size":"0","image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post":"0","trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post":"0","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","sponsored_post_name":"","sponsored_post_url":"","sponsored_post_logo_enable":"0","sponsored_post_logo":"","sponsored_post_desc":"","disable_ad":"0"},"jnews_primary_category":{"id":""},"jnews_social_meta":{"fb_title":"","fb_description":"","fb_image":"","twitter_title":"","twitter_description":"","twitter_image":""},"jnews_review":[],"enable_review":"0","type":"percentage","name":"","summary":"","brand":"","sku":"","good":[{"good_text":""}],"bad":[{"bad_text":""}],"score_override":"","override_value":"","rating":[{"rating_text":"","rating_number":"10"}],"price":[{"shop":"","price":"","link":"","icon":""}],"jnews_override_counter":{"override_view_counter":"0","view_counter_number":"0","override_share_counter":"0","share_counter_number":"0","override_like_counter":"0","like_counter_number":"0","override_dislike_counter":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"jnews_post_split":{"enable_post_split":"0","post_split":[{"template":"1","tag":"h2","numbering":"asc","mode":"normal","first":"0","enable_toc":"0","toc_type":"normal"}]},"footnotes":""},"categories":[5314],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17129","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kivuavenir.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17129","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kivuavenir.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kivuavenir.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kivuavenir.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kivuavenir.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17129"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kivuavenir.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17129\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17131,"href":"https:\/\/kivuavenir.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17129\/revisions\/17131"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kivuavenir.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kivuavenir.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kivuavenir.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kivuavenir.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}