A RELAÇÃO ENTRE A COPA DO MUNDO DE FUTEBOL FIFA 2022 E O PROJETO “ANO DO RETORNO” EM GANA

Abstract

At the 2022 World Cup, the Ghana national football team identified athletes born abroad with dual nationality able to defend their selection in the event. The strategy is nothing new in football, as several other teams use this method, however, the act of the Ghanaian Football Federation got attention because it is a project of the Ghanaian government that in 2019, in memory of the 400th anniversary of the departure of the first slave ships from the Gold Coast to the Americas, launched the “Year of Return”, an action that sought to reconnect Ghanaians and descendants of the African diaspora to the continent. This article seeks to make a comparison between the action of the Ghanaian State with football, rescuing the historical relationship of these fields that date back to the first years of Ghana as an independent country and the influence of the famous leader Kwame Nkrumah in promoting the sport as an element for pan-africanist unity and identity in Africa.