19/07/2026
🏆🌍 ULTIMATE GLOBAL SHOW.
Leo vs Lamin. Argentina vs Spain.
The Final is Here.
On the 11th of June 2026, slightly a few hours before the first game of the FIFA World Cup 2026 commenced, I took time to lay out my expectations who would shine, who would go the distance, who would be standing at the very end.
Today, on the 19th of July 2026, we have our answer to that question.
The final is here.
And I am privileged genuinely privileged to be alive in this season and this century to witness the ultimate game of football.
But before we get to the final, let us honour what came before it.
As a responsible and astute Pan-African, my first allegiance in this tournament was never in question.
I was behind every African team that stepped onto that pitch.
For the first time in history, this great continent secured 10 spots in the tournament out of 48 and let that number sit with you for a moment.
Ten African nations on the grandest stage football has ever assembled.
That was not luck. That was proof.
Africa is not your average continent, and the world saw it clearly.
Our African teams gave everything they had.
They made history each one of them in one way or another.
Neither of them stands in today's final, but let me be clear about something: we did not lose.
We learned.
And there is a profound difference between those two things.
Every match played, every moment of brilliance displayed, every tactical battle contested by an African side in this World Cup was another deposit into the account of this continent's footballing future.
That account is growing.
Outside Africa, in Europe, I was behind England and England tried.
They fought a spirited, commendable fight and emerged as the bronze medalists of this World Cup.
That is not nothing.
That is history of its own kind.
And then there is Argentina.
In the Americas, I was behind Argentina from the beginning.
And here we are they stand in the final. Against a formidable Spanish side, though Spain does not carry my love on this particular occasion.
Two footballing giants.
Two nations that understand this game at its deepest level.
Two squads carrying some of the finest players of our time if not all time.
In less than two hours, the whistle blows for the last time in this tournament.
May the best team win.
Though if I must be specific it may, and perhaps must, be Argentina.
But beyond the result, beyond the trophy, beyond the celebrations that will echo across the world tonight there is a bigger conversation that this World Cup demands we have.
Football is a billion dollar industry.
A genuinely, consequentially, transformatively billion dollar industry.
And the continent of Africa with its talent, its passion, its population, and its growing infrastructure has every right and every capacity to tap into and explore this potential at the highest level.
That is not a dream.
That is an agenda.
It is my agenda.
And it remains a firm pillar of the Change For Africa Campaign — CFAC.
The football of today must become the industry, the investment, and the institution of tomorrow's Africa.
Happy Finale. Argentina vs Spain. FIFA World Cup 2026.
The 19th of July — a day football history is written.
We are Africans and Africa is our business.
