{"id":4698,"date":"2026-03-28T18:48:25","date_gmt":"2026-03-28T18:48:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/?p=4698"},"modified":"2026-03-28T18:51:01","modified_gmt":"2026-03-28T18:51:01","slug":"prolific-sports-author-endorses-celebration-of-gossage-cup-centenary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/2026\/03\/28\/prolific-sports-author-endorses-celebration-of-gossage-cup-centenary\/","title":{"rendered":"Prolific Sports Author Endorses Celebration of Gossage Cup Centenary<\/strong>"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Satish Sekar \u00a9 Satish Sekar (March 28th<\/sup> 2026)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Africa\u2019s Other 1966 Football Claim to Fame<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prolific sports author and journalist, Keir Radnedge, has covered many tournaments and written several books. He was, of course, aware of Africa\u2019s major claim to football fame strike in 1966 \u2013 led by then African champions, Ghana, Africa boycotted England\u2019s World Cup to protest against the lack of an automatic qualification spot for Africa.[1]<\/a> However, he was unaware of another important African football event that took place in 1966.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After 40 years, Africa\u2019s first international football tournament, the Gossage Cup ended \u2013 it was then rebranded as the East African Challenge Cup in 1967, which lasted five years. In 1973 it was rebranded again in its current incarnation, the CECAFA[2]<\/a> Senior Challenge Cup.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Gossage Cup, named after British soap manufacturing firm William Gossage & Sons, which had been a subsidiary of the controversial British soap giants, Lever Brothers[3]<\/a> since 1911, had sponsored football in the region, culminating in the first international football tournament in African history bearing its name. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nevertheless, the Gossage Cup is an important part of Africa\u2019s football history and its centenary deserves to be commemorated. Keir Radnedge agrees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Keir Radnedge<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think it is important,\u201d Radnedge told me in an exclusive interview on the subject (https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=otye4x8DFBs<\/a> Keir Radnedge on the Gossage Cup Centenary Anniversary).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFootball history is important and it is extremely important to maintain and remember and mark the outstanding milestones in the game\u2019s history and so, this would fall into that category.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

[1]<\/a> Africa won their protest against only one slot at the World Cup being allocated for Africa, Asia and Oceania combined. North Korea made their World Cup d\u00e9but at that World Cup and impressed greatly. Africa won an automatic slot at the next World Cup and Asia and Oceania was awarded with an automatic spot at the next World Cup as well. Morocco won the first slot reserved for Africa at M\u00e9xico\u2019s first World Cup in 1970, and Israel, then a member of the Asian Football Confederation, won the slot for the AFC and Oceania.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[2]<\/a> CECAFA \u2013 the Council for East and Central Africa Football Associations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[3]<\/a> Among the subsidiaries owned by Lever Brothers was HCB \u2013 Huileries du Congo Belge which provided palm oil for luxury soaps that other Lever Brothers subsidiaries manufactured. HCB\u2019s methods in the Belgian Congo as it then was, were brutal and outrageous. Hesketh Lever, later Viscount Leverhulme, was once a Liberal Party MP with a reputation for caring about the welfare of workers in the Wirral, but that did not translate to the treatment of African workers who had to be compelled into agreeing to work and live in poor conditions in his plantation in the Congo.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Satish Sekar \u00a9 Satish Sekar (March 28th 2026) Africa\u2019s Other 1966 Football Claim to Fame Prolific sports author and journalist, Keir Radnedge, has covered many [\u2026]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4649,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[16,17,14],"tags":[1726,1723,832,1724,1443,1693,1227,1688,1727,325],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4698"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4698"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4698\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4701,"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4698\/revisions\/4701"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4649"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}