What Will It Take for an African Country to Win the World Cup?

Since the establishment of the FIFA World Cup, no African country has lifted the football’s most coveted trophy. While the continent has produced some of the most gifted footballers in the world—JayJay Okocha, George Weah, Didier Drogba, Samuel Eto’o, Yaya Touré, Mohamed Salah, Sadio Mané, Victor Osimhen and countless others—the World Cup has remained beyond its reach.

Although a few African countries have strived to bring the trophy home, the dream is yet to come true. Cameroon reached the quarter-finals in 1990 to become the first African team to reach the quarter-finals. Then came Morocco’s historic run in 2022 to become the first African country to reach the World Cup semi-finals. These strides are important to highlight because the more an African country progresses in the tournament, the more African countries are included. When Cameroon reached the quarter-finals in 1990, more spaces were created for Africa; likewise, when Morocco reached the semi-finals, which is why we have more African countries at the World Cup in 2026.

Now, as African teams continue to challenge some of football’s traditional heavyweights at the 2026 World Cup, it is right to ask whether African countries finally have a chance to lift the World Cup. So far, at the time of writing, two African countries, Morocco and Egypt, have reached the Round of 16, defeating and drawing some of the tournament’s giants. All these indicate that African teams are striving to rewrite history and lift the trophy for the continent.

But before we ask whether an African country has a chance of lifting the World Cup, we should start instead by asking if Africa is ready to build the institutions to enable the dream to come true.

It is…