Makana Football Association

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The Makana Football Association was a football association with its own league game operation, which was organized in South Africa during the apartheid period by prisoners on the prison island Robben Island . It was founded in June 1969 after inmates had been allowed to play football four years earlier and the first teams were formed as a result. It was named after a legendary Xhosa warrior who was exiled to Robben Island in the 19th century.

The rules of the world football association FIFA were binding for the games organized by the Makana Football Association . Game operations were organized in three divisions, with games usually taking place on Saturdays for nine months of the year. In addition to various teams, most of which represented political organizations such as the African National Congress and the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC), the prisoners also took on tasks such as trainers , referees and paramedics as well as the organizational functions necessary for a game. The necessary equipment including sportswear was either built or procured by the prisoners themselves or provided by the prison administration.

The most prominent players included the current ANC chairman and South African President Jacob Zuma and the later Minister for Settlements Tokyo Sexwale as well as Mosiuoa Gerard Patrick Lekota , who served as South Africa's defense minister from 1999 to 2008, and Dikgang Moseneke , who has been deputy chairman since 2005 Is a judge at the South African Constitutional Court . The Makana Football Association existed until 1991, when the island's maximum security prison for political prisoners was dissolved after the end of apartheid. As the first association in football history, it was awarded honorary FIFA membership in 2007. In the same year, a film adaptation of the history of football matches on Robben Island was released under the title “More Than Just A Game”. In 2008 she received the Order of Ikhamanga in silver.

literature

  • Chuck Korr, Marvin Close: More Than Just a Game: Football v Apartheid. HarperCollins, London 2009, ISBN 0-00-730299-1 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ List of recipients of the order 2010  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (English), accessed June 19, 2014@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.sahistory.org.za