South Africa has had a long love affair with the beautiful game, dating back to the early 19th century, and is embodied at all levels of the sport.

It has been only 15 years since South Africa returned from almost three decades of apartheid-enforced isolation on the football scene. During that brief period, the country's national side, Bafana Bafana (The Boys'), have qualified for two FIFA World Cup TM finals and also won the CAF Africa Cup of Nations.

Football in South Africa draws follows the example of their former colonial masters of Great Britain with the format, set-up and administration of the game in line with the world's oldest football association, the English FA. South Africa's ties with British football stretch back more than a century and consequently there are many similarities.

South African clubs reflect the diverse cultural and ethnic background of the country's rainbow nation, although the stark racial divide that once characterised professional football in South Africa is no longer evident.

It is one of the many tragedies of the apartheid era in South Africa that footballers from the country were denied a chance to perform on the international stage. Generations of stars never got the opportunity to test their mettle in competitions like the FIFA World Cup TM and the CAF Africa Cup of Nations because of the policy of separation practiced by the white minority regime.

South Africa has been among the pioneers of women's football in Africa, but successive teams have continually missed out on continental success at various championships over the past 15 years. Women's football in South Africa had been played for more than two decades before the country's return to the FIFA fold in 1991.