The Impact of the 1984 African Nations Cup on Football in Africa

It was March 1984. The attention of the whole African continent was captivated by football for two whole weeks as terrestrial radio and TV stations beamed live and delayed footballing scenes and traditional newspapers carried news reports from Bouake and Abidjan, the two Ivorian cities that hosted the matches of the 14th African Nations Cup. And what enthralling matches they were.

At that time, only eight countries got to contend for the trophy at the Nations Cup, so qualification for the tournament was stiffer, and playing both stage and final rounds was tougher than now that up to 24 teams are participating.

Perhaps the most remarkable thing about the 1984 African Nations Cup was the unveiling of Ivory Coast the host country as a force to be reckoned with in football in Africa, like it would be with host Senegal in 1992 and South Africa in 1996. For each of these occasions, it was a show of signs of what was to come from these respective countries.

For Ivory Coast in 1984, it wasn’t a totally unfamiliar reckoning as the country had shone to a degree in the past, particularly in the 1968 and 1970 editions of the Nations Cup when legendary ace player Laurent Pokou’s 14 goals, six in 1968 and eight in 1970, lifted the country to some prominence in African football, though Ivory Coast did not win the Nations Cup at that time. Laurent Pokou’s record of 14 goals at the Nations Cup would stand for over three decades, until Samuel Etoo of Cameroun came around to smash it, taking his own goal tally to 18 in six African Nations Cup appearances.

The pedigree Ivory Coast was building with their performance in the late sixties however got deflated in the seventies so much that by 1984 when the country was hosting the Nations Cup, there wasn’t much hope for the country to win and lift the trophy on home soil like it was earlier when Ghana hosted and won in 1978, and Nigeria two years later.

And win Ivory Coast did not as host in 1984! The Ivorien team didn’t even have a place in the semi-finals. At the final match played at Stade Felix Houphouet-Boigny, Cameroon defeated Nigeria 3-1 to win its first Nations Cup title.

Nigeria had earlier edged out Egypt in a tension-soaked semifinal match, coming back from two goals down to beat the Egyptian team on penalties. It was to be the first of the three occasions that goalkeeper Peter Rufai’s saving hands would help Nigeria carry the day at the semi-final round of the Nations Cup, the second time at the 1998 Nations Cup in Morocco, and the third at the 1994 edition in Tunisia. Equally pulsating encounters these three crucial semifinal matches were.

The final match of the 1984 Nations Cup in Abidjan was to be a different ball game as Nigeria met its match in Cameroon, a football country that gave an impressive performance at the World Cup in Spain two years earlier, bowing out of the global competition without losing a match, despite playing eventual winners Italy and semifinalist Poland.

Things were going Nigeria’s way early in that final match when Muda Lawal scored the opener for Nigeria, but the Cameroonians came back forcefully into the game to subdue the opposition, slicing the Nigerian defence with deft dribbles and passes, and resultant goals from Rene N’Djeya, Theophile Abega and Ernest Ebongue. Cameroon would later beat Nigeria to the Nations Cup two more times, in 1988 and 2000, in a more painful manner for the losers.

Of the three defeats that Nigeria suffered from Cameroon at the final of the Nations Cup, the 1984 episode was the one Nigeria had little to regret or complain about. They were beaten by a more experienced and resourceful Cameroonian side, whose dominance in African football was just beginning at that time.

What made the 1984 Nations Cup tournament a point of reference here wasn’t just the emergence of Cameroon as a superpower in African football or the signals sent by the promising Ivory Coast team that they would one day, rule Africa, a potential that was realized eight years after at Senegal ’92.

It was something outside the field of play, a socioeconomic change happening to the African continent and the rest of the world, which European countries particularly would take great advantage of. The mid-eighties saw the beginning of the exodus of African players from their home soil to foreign countries to ply their trade and make a name and fortune for themselves. It was an upwardly mobile development that would change the complexion of the game contextually in Africa and, literally, in the world.

Before this time, an average African national team had most of its players in the local league, and hardly would you find a black man in a team of white men. The iconic French team of the mid-eighties that won the European Championship the same 1984 and got to the semis of the 1982 and 1986 World Cup perhaps only had Jean Tigana as dark complexioned player.

John Barnes, England’s gifted left-winger of Jamaican descent, was only given a chance of 15 minutes to play at the 1986 World Cup in Mexico after England were down to Argentina by two most remarkable goals from Diego Maradona in the quarter-final match. Barnes would make a positive mark on the game in the short period remaining by providing a notable assist that reduced the tally and making the score 1-2, with many English fans wondering why he had not been fielded from the beginning of the match and the tournament.

Today, English national team coaches conveniently field black players, and the French team that got to the final of the last World Cup in Qatar had more black players, mostly of African roots, than white. French superlative forward, Kylian Mbappe, who scored a famous hat trick at the final, is originally from Cameroon.