A month after the June massacre in 1976, South Africa was banned from FIFA due to racial segregation policies. It was on this day 25 years ago that it was reinstated. Before the ban, the country made history by becoming the first country outside of Europe to become a FIFA member in 1910.
At the time, South Africa had already been kicked out of the Confederation of African Football (CAF) in 1958 and was deprived of the opportunity to participate in the inaugural Africa Cup of Nations tournament in Sudan a year earlier.
Twenty five years later, much has happened in the football arena – from hosting and winning the 1996 Africa Cup of Nations, to becoming the first African nation to host the FIFA World Cup in 2010.
