By Satish Sekar © Satish Sekar (May 25^th 2026)

Africa’s Pioneering Football Event

The CECAFA Cup is the oldest international football tournament in African history. It had started life as the Gossage Cup – named after British luxury soap manufacturers, William Gossage & Sons, even though the company had been a subsidiary of Lever Brothers (later Unilever) since 1911, which was 15 years before the first Gossage Cup took place.

The first edition of the Gossage Cup took place at Kenya Railways’, Landi Mawe Grounds in Nairobi. Unfortunately, Tanganikya and Zanzibar declined the invitation to play in the inaugural Gossage Cup, but they would take part in the tournament regularly from the late 1940s onwards.

Meanwhile, May 1^st 1926 hosted the first match in the history of the Gossage Cup – it ended 1-1 between Kenya and Uganda, which meant that a replay was necessary – it took place just over 100 years ago, on May 3^rd 1926 and ended with Kenya lifting the Gossage Cup after beating Uganda 2-1.

A Darker Tragic History

The last Gossage Cup took place in Zanzibar in 1966. Gossage & Sons invested in football in East Africa, thereby helping to develop football there. Nevertheless, it had a darker historical side. William Lever, later Viscount Leverhulme, was once a Liberal Member of Parliament with paternalistic views about the working class – he believed that productivity could be increased if there was a happier workforce whose basic needs were catered for. He did this in Merseyside.

However, his attempts to repeat the method in the Belgian Congo backfired spectacularly. The Congolese were not interested and had to be coerced into living and working on Lever’s plantation. His lofty ideals were abandoned when he failed to persuade Congolese to work for him – the workforce was compelled.

Lever obtained palm oil through another subsidiary Huileries du Congo Belge (HCB) – the switch to palm oil for Lever Brothers’ luxury soaps industry took place in 1897. By 1911 the ‘liberal’ Lever saw the opportunity to cut out suppliers of palm oil. When his first efforts failed, a plantation at a place named Leverville was established – the happy workforce ideals was soon sacrificed for compelling a reluctant workforce in the then Belgian Congo – Leverville lasted until 1940. The plan to demonstrate ‘moral capitalism’ – Lever’s idea – not only failed miserably, but the intention to transplant Liverpool’s Port Sunlight project to Africa was abandoned in favour of compulsion when African workers did not buy into Lever’s blandishments – the reality proved much more brutal and exploitative than Lever’s promises.

While HCB was a monstrosity, Gossage & Sons was not. Both were subsidiaries of Lever Brothers. While Gossage & Sons left a far more benevolent legacy behind – both in soap manufacturing and football – the same cannot be said of HCB and by extension, Lever Brothers.

The CECAFA Cup

CECAFA (the Council of East and Central African Football Associations) was established unofficially in 1926, but it was a small and seemingly insignificant sub-region of African football. For almost two decades its trophy was contested only by Kenya and Uganda – Tanganikya joined in 1945 and Zanzibar four years later. Tanganikya won its first Gossage Cup in Zanzibar in 1949. The last edition of the Gossage Cup occurred in 1966. Kenya won it with Uganda the runners-up. It was hosted by Zanzibar.

After a brief interlude of the East and Central African Challenge Cup from 1967-71, the CECAFA Cup took over. It continues to this day. The centenary is this year – there has not been an edition of the CECAFA Cup since 2021. It is overdue as is a celebration of the Gossage Cup’s centenary.