Eddie Mungai

I’ve been trying to get more into Major League Soccer (MLS) these last couple of years instead of just sticking to my usual Premier League fix. A few years ago, a friend of mine had the idea of having us choose an expansion MLS team to support (an expansion is a newly founded team entering MLS). When David Beckham announced back in 2017 his team will be joining the other MLS teams in 2020, I started following Inter Miami.

While watching several MLS games, I noticed a significant number of African players in the league. So I decided to take a deeper look into this. Look at this pie chart!

It makes me wonder why there are currently more Ghanaians in MLS than any other nationality. Could it be related to the folding of the Ghana Football Federation in 2018? I don’t know. But what I do know is that several notable African players have made the trek to the States, such as Chris Mavinga (DRC, Toronto FC), Victor Wanyama (Kenya, Montreal Impact) and Jonathan Mensah (Ghana, Columbus Crew). Let’s look at which MLS teams have African players.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Montreal has the most African players out of any team in MLS. If you look at the immigrant population in Montreal, the majority of the immigrant population were born in Africa (11.6% to be exact). So a home away from home for some African players (especially the french-speaking ones)! But I do find it surprising that a team like Atlanta, which is one of the top 5 cities for sub-Saharan Africans to reside in the United States, does not have a single African player. Of course it’s not required for players on MLS teams to be representative of their city, but what if it was a requirement?

I’m going to ask that question again, but just in a different way: what if MLS teams were representative of their cities’ diverse ethnic demographics? For instance, if Portland’s largest immigrant population was born in Japan (this isn’t true but just an example) and 12% of Portland’s population was born in Japan, should about 12% of the team be made up of Japanese-born soccer players? It’s something to think about.