African women catch football fever

NAIROBI - Mia Rajput frowned and minced nervously in her high heels. France, her favourite side, had crashed out of the World Cup and it was no consolation that hosts South Africa had beaten them.

“Now I’ve got to find myself a new team,” Rajput, a 29-year-old Kenyan, said dejectedly as she fingered her Les Bleus jersey. She wants to root for somebody until the tournament is over.

“At least I can keep cheering on Ghana,” she remarked.

Football definitely used to be “guy stuff” in Africa, even though many African countries have dedicated girls’ and women’s teams.

Female fans make up only a small minority of the spectators in football stadiums, and they are considered undignified if they allow themselves to be carried away by the excitement.

Angolan First Lady Ana dos Santos set tongues wagging when she kept jumping up from her VIP seat to cheer her national team’s goals during the 2010 Africa Cup of Nations in January.

But the first World Cup on African soil had made football socially acceptable for women. In tea rooms and offices, they discuss the line-ups and performances of their favourite teams - and also the looks and presumed characters of the players.

Women’s magazines have recognized the trend and offer football-kit fashion tips. Some ask their readers, “Who’s the hottest African football star?”

For Mia the answer is perfectly clear. “Didier Drogba! The man has style, a great body, and I like his hairdo,” she said.

She glanced disdainfully at her male office colleagues. Kenyan men, if they are not part of the country’s small music scene, usually have closely cropped hair and not flowing locks like star Ivory Coast striker Drogba.

Cameroon’s Samuel Eto’o and Ghana’s Michael Essien are also very popular with African women.

“Why hasn’t Essien played yet, anyway? I think he’s so good… “wondered a female co-worker aloud as she bent over a glossy magazine with pictures of footballers. With that, she gave herself away as a football neophyte - Essien has been sidelined with an injury.

Despite football fever in South Africa, not all African women have an unclouded relationship with the sport. Faduma Amin, from Nairobi, gets suspicious whenever her husband and his friends arrange to meet in a pub to watch a televised match.

“Who makes sure they’re really watching football,” Amin asked, pointing to a newspaper article about marital infidelity during the World Cup.

“At the end of the day, all the talk about football is only a pretext for married men to spend whole evenings with their secret girlfriends.”