The 2026 FIFA World Cup opens June 11 with African fans banned, a Somali referee turned away at the airport, Iran squeezed between war and a football pitch, and drug cartels at war in Mexican host cities. Canada is the only co-host without a crisis.
As South Africa makes its World Cup return, fans across Africa are cheering for the opposition, in an act of pan-African protest that governments, journalists, and ordinary supporters have made impossible to ignore.
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