Africa United is the story of modern day Africa told through its soccer. Travelling across thirteen countries, from Cairo to the Cape, Steve Bloomfield, the former Africa Correspondent for The Independent, meets players and fans, politicians and rebel leaders, discovering the role that soccer has played in shaping the continent. This wide-ranging and incisive book investigates Africa’s love of soccer, its increasing global influence, the build-up to the 2010 World Cup itself and the social and political backdrop to the greatest show on earth.

Africa United is the story of modern-day Africa told through its soccer. Traveling across thirteen countries, from Cairo to the Cape, Steve Bloomfield meets players and fans, politicians and rebel leaders, discovering the role that soccer has played in shaping the continent. He recounts how soccer has helped to stoke conflicts and end wars, bring countries together and prop up authoritarian regimes.

A lively and elegantly reported travelogue, Africa United calls attention to the amazing relationships between people and soccer, and to the state of Africa on the cusp of the biggest moment in its sporting history, the 2010 World Cup.