It is a well-known fact that football, the beautiful game, is the most popular sport in the world, and Africa is no exception (Alegi 2010: xi), as football ‘is without competitor Africa's game’ (Goldblatt 2008: 480). The reasons behind the game's immense popularity are multiple and universal: ‘ludic properties, simplicity and lack of expense’ (Darby 2002: 26). However, there is perhaps another reason that explains the appeal behind the sociocultural phenomenon that is football in Africa: football has evolved from a mere game to represent the embodiment of the neocolonial fantasy. The traditional neocolonial fantasy of finding a better life in Europe or in America is still widespread in the consciousness of the African people, as evidenced by a few cinematic productions in the new century that will be discussed below. Football holds not only an entertaining value, an escape from boredom, but it also points to the possibility of an actual escape, of striking gold on the old continent by becoming a football star in a European club team. Interestingly, cinematic representations of football propose a doubling of this fantasy: the fantasy of football is mediated by the fantasy on screen, the fantasy that is cinema. This double layer of fantasy physically translates into the fetish object of the football jersey: several secondary characters in West African films wear football jerseys. Starting from this observation this chapter will explore the connections between football, fantasy and cinema in films by three contemporary West African directors, Moussa Touré (Senegal), Abderrahmane Sissako (Mali), and Mahamat Saleh Haroun (Chad). The findings should shed light on the sociopolitical importance of football in West Africa (and its connections with Europe) and its contribution to the concept of cinemamonde. The chapter also aims to begin sketching a psychoanalytical model for neocolonial subjectivity (that is, not European-based) as it emerges from the clutches of fantasy.

Fantasy Veils

It stands to reason that fantasy in the African context must follow a separate set of rules from its European counterpart. Several canonical researchers of African cinema – David Murphy, Kenneth Harrow, and Laura Mulvey, for example – have successfully relied on psychoanalysis to frame their explorations of African cinema. Yet, their studies miss an opportunity to go beyond the limits of European psychoanalysis, to attempt the construction of a properly African model of fantasy.