One of the most notable figures of the 2026 FIFA World Cup emerged during Ghana’s first match of the tournament: the “juju man,” Kailani Ibrahim Kpa, who was famously seen blowing white powder into the air during the game.

Another Ghanaian, Nana Kwaku Bonsam, went viral just before the match for claiming to have placed a curse on England’s captain, Harry Kane. Bonsam is a particularly media-savvy Twi traditional priest and one of the most recognizable faces of what is commonly called “witchcraft” or “juju” in African soccer.

Juju quickly became a topic of conversation and fascination for millions of soccer fans around the world, particularly after Kane failed to score and the match ended in a draw.

Although it may seem strange to westerners, soccer and esoteric rituals go hand in hand in Africa. One infamous video from Rwanda that regularly circulates on African group chats shows a striker failing to score, snatching a “charm” from inside the goal and subsequently scoring.

Ghanaians in particular have a long history of leveraging the spiritual side of sports. Former captain André Ayew scattered a ritual powder on the pitch in 2012, and Bonsam himself announced he cursed Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo ahead of the 2014 World Cup.

This blending of spirituality and sport can be easy for westerners to misinterpret or dismiss as simple superstition. This is particularly true when spiritual fraudsters try to make money by promising to help teams win and their predictions do not come true.

However, Africans are not backwards or simple-minded. Foreign academics and even colonial officials........

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