Abuja, 1999

Thomas Hoeffgen

Afrique football Nigéria

Un mot sur l'oeuvre

( REF : THOE002)
This image comes from «African Arenas », a major photography project produced over a ten-year period by Thomas Hoeffgen. The project tells the story of a continent through its football pitches.
The work has appeared in print many times and was published in 2010 in Germany by the publisher Hatje Cantz. It was awarded a prestigious International Photograpy Award in 2011.
In the suburbs of Abuja in the north of Nigeria, the endless Sunday football matches.

Le témoignage de Thomas Hoeffgen

 I caught the football bug in 1999 when I went to Africa to do a photography feature on the Nigerian player, Jonathan Akpoborie. At the time he was playing for VfB Stuttgart and I was working for the German edition of Playboy. At the last minute he couldn’t make it. I was already in Nigeria and ended up alone in Lagos, his home town.
He felt guilty, so to help me he got one of his oldest friends, who knew his life story, to drive me to all the places he had played football at as a kid and teenager. Not wanting to go home empty-handed, I followed in his footsteps.
This is also a shot taken during my first trip. After a few days in Lagos I’d decided to travel to the north of the country. In my mind the project had really taken off.
I remember the crippling heat that day. I could hardly breathe and they played football for hours.

Le choix de Jean-Denis

You can practically feel the heat coming off the photo. The arid pitch, the blinding light and the layer of heat that has whitened the backdrop. It is a simple scene but it says so much about Africa. The modest equipment that doesn’t stop their mad passion for the sport. Play, just play.
It is both an understated and well-balanced image. Ideal for when it is cold outside…