Are African countries piggybacking on Europe’s youth football infrastructure on the back of Fifa’s relaxed “One-Time Switch” rule, or is the current wave of nationalist ideology and consciousness in global politics responsible for a shadow African football revolution?
The latest country to go full throttle on this is the Democratic Republic of Congo at the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) in Morocco. And the results are starting to show, more so in the past few years, even though DR Congo, semi-finalists at the 2023 Afcon, and a dark horse in Morocco ’25, faced a heart-breaking 119th minute Round of 16 exit.
DR Congo is not punching above her weight. They have two Afcon honours to their name, in 1968 and 1974. And that Class of ’74 also gave them their only appearance at a Fifa World Cup.
Notwithstanding the setback in Morocco, the DR Congo has the final 2026 Fifa World Cup intercontinental qualification in April, in what is their best opportunity to head to their second Fifa showpiece.
This resurgence is thanks largely to embracing, albeit on steroids, what the powerful regions of African football, namely West and North Africa, have been doing for some time.
Only seven out of the 26-man squad at Morocco ’25 were born in the DRC. Of the seven, only four were developed in the country, with the other three having emigrated from the country at very young ages.
This deliberate move to scout eligible and talented players in countries such as Belgium, France, Switzerland and England, and invite them to play for their motherland or fatherland, is an edict by the country’s president Félix Tshisekedi.
The president was quasi-exiled for 26 years in Belgium, and even started his family in Europe.
His background may have opened up and informed these new vistas.
The meteoric rise of the former Spanish colony and CAF minnows Cape Verde, a 2026 Fifa World Cup debutant, is another case study.
Morocco, 2022 Fifa World Cup semifinalist, which is co-hosting the 2030 edition of the Fifa World Cup with their two neighbours across the Mediterranean pond on the Iberian Peninsula, is another country benefiting from the highly regarded Spanish foundation football programmes.
It has long been suggested that the switch to African roots, and grandparental links, by European-born players is not patriotism but egregious opportunism.
However, it is now hard to argue that the new generation of precociously talented breakout stars, such as Senegal’s Ibrahim Mbaye, are motivated to play for African countries solely due to bleak prospects of ever breaking into European national teams in future.
The Fifa One-Time Switch rules now allow for players to switch nationality even after making up to three official senior international caps; with proviso that those caps were not at major tournaments like the Afcon, Euro or Fifa World Cup, and that the last cap was before a player turned 21 years of age, and followed by a three-year cooling period from first nation.
This allows players, and second nations, to access proper developed world youth football infrastructure and development at junior international level from U17 to U20/21 to Olympic squads (U23) in environments conducive to formative foundation football.
South Africa, another of two dark horses at the 2025 Afcon, and an antithesis to DR Congo in terms of squad selection, also exited the CAF flagship tournament at Round 16 stage.
The capitulation of Bafana Bafana’s predominantly locally-based and SA-born players was misdiagnosed even by head coach Hugo Broos, as due to a lack of technical and tactical awareness that can only be cultivated by experience and exporting Premier Soccer League (PSL) players to Europe.
While this may have smidgen of truth on the surface, a thorough deep dive shows that simply exporting players from the PSL may not be enough at this juncture as that train has already left the station.
It is not as if West Africa is churning out any more volumes of raw talent from their respective local leagues than South Africa, other than sponging off the West to provide ready-made talent for them.
Is it a classic ‘don’t hate the player, hate the game’, or an act of buying football success at all cost?
• Makgwathane Mothapo consults in the crisis and reputation management space.
