The Story Of Biafra Football Club (1969- 1978)

By Bianca Odumegwu Ojukwu

Indeed there was a country... and there was also the Biafra Football Club.

In the dying months of the breakaway Republic of Biafra, a group of idealistic young football lovers gathered together

in Valls, Barcelona (Spain) to honour the heroic struggle of The Biafrans .

They created a symbolic pennant and founded the Biafra Football club in order to draw world attention to the plight of Biafra, using one of the most potent methods known to humanity.

Football.

CF Biafra had about a hundred players from Reus to Pla, from Nulles to Tarragona they settled in El Vilar, within the federated amateur league and rode all the way to the Third Regional League.

Half a century later, the golden anniversary of the Biafra football club

was celebrated.

Though now extinct, Biafra , to those idealistic young men, was a mirror for their own struggles . In their perception, their own region of Catalunya ( Catalonia) was going through the same situation at the hands of the Spanish government as Biafra was

experiencing, at the hands of the Nigerian government.

They found a common bond and affinity with the Biafra struggle through the formation of the Biafra football club in Valls.

The club existed until 1978 when its activities were truncated by lack of economic resources.