In NYC's Little Senegal, World Cup excitement meets exclusion and economic strain

In the barber shops and cafes of Little Senegal, the West African enclave stretching along 116th Street in New York City’s Harlem, big screens glow with football matches, flags drape from walls, and nearly every conversation finds its way back to the upcoming clash between France and Senegal.
Every third or fourth storefront displays Senegal’s green-and-white football shirts, hanging prominently in windows and doorways. Along the avenue, passersby stroll in bucket hats striped red, yellow and green – the colours of the Senegalese flag.

But there is also an unmistakable despondency in the air. 

The stark inequities surrounding the tournament – from travel restrictions to exclusionary ticket prices – have dulled enthusiasm and prompted even avowed football fans within the community to ask tough questions about priorities in a tough economic climate.

Tickets for the premier footballing event have reached unprecedented heights. Tickets for sought-after fixtures involving teams like Senegal – the current reigning, albeit disputed, kings of the African continent – are fetching prices well into the thousands of dollars.

The challenges have left thousands of fans and amateur players who love the game convinced that football’s current incarnation was not made for them.

“I’m a football fan, but some things are just unimaginable,” Abdoul Aziz, a caregiver based in Harlem, told Middle East Eye.

“How could I pay $1,000-plus for a football ticket when there are people in my country who are in need? I would never do that – though I do love football and support my national team,” Aziz, who travelled last week to Piscataway in New Jersey to welcome the team to the US, said. 

MEE spoke with community leaders, football fans, and a string of workers in Little Senegal who all seemed to share the view that absurdities and obstacles aside, they were determined to make this a tournament the community would remember. 

West African enclave

An estimated 33,000 Senegalese live in the US, part of a diaspora spread across major cities like New York City.

For decades, Little Senegal has been known for its restaurants, hair-braiding salons, and clothing stores selling boubous – the long colourful Senegalese robes – all of which have brought a piece of West Africa to Harlem.

Small stores selling international call cards and mobile phone accessories sit beside halal butcheries and general stores jam-packed with cosmetic and beauty products from West African markets.

The neighbourhood extends to the Malcolm Shabazz Mosque, where Malcolm X served as a minister for the Nation of Islam. 

Through its vibrant markets and cultural presence, the West African community, particularly the Senegalese community, is credited with helping revitalise Harlem’s economy when they arrived in the 1980s and 1990s.

Over the years, the community has noted that Little Senegal has become less concentrated owing to rising rents and growing gentrification in Harlem. It, however, remains a hub for West Africans in the city.

On Sunday, Cote d’Ivoire fans assembled outside an Ivorian restaurant on 116th Street before heading down to Philadelphia to watch the fixture with Ecuador.
Their contribution notwithstanding, Senegalese migrants and visitors are routinely put through the grind when it comes to entering the US, with American authorities accusing Senegalese nationals of frequently overstaying their visas.

In early 2026, US President Donald Trump placed Senegal on a list of countries subject to a visa bond. Applicants would be required to pay a $5,000-$15,000 bond to enter the US, thereby excluding many applicants from a tournament such as the World Cup. The US did issue a waiver for applicants who purchased their tickets through the Fifa website and opted in to the Fifa pass system by 15 April.  

Senegalese ultras, known as The Douzième Gaindé, were also unable to attend due to visa restrictions.

“It’s sad how they have done this to – not just Senegalese supporters and fans – but so many other teams from elsewhere,” a Senegalese fan named Max, who is a beauty product entrepreneur, told MEE.
“This is the World Cup, after all. It has never happened like this before,” the 42-year-old said, as a barber applied black dye to his lightly greying hair.

“It’s racism. America always tries to show itself as superior to others,” Saliou Gueye, a sports science student living in Harlem, told MEE.

A sprinkling of fans, however, did manage to travel from Senegal and secure tickets for the game against France.
Boubacar Cisse, a businessman from the capital, Dakar, said he and his brother had come for the World Cup, but acknowledged that they were exceptions. Their visas were unrelated to the tournament.
“It’s difficult for a lot of people. But Alhamdulillah we were able to get tickets for the game, too,” he told MEE.

“We understand that every one country has its own policy. We respect that…but since it was for the World Cup, they could have made some arrangements,” he added.
Gueye says it is infuriating that authorities have made it so difficult for those outside the US to attend, while making it so hard for those already in the country to afford tickets.
It is less than 14 miles from 116th Street to the stadium in New Jersey where the match will take place.

Responding to the challenges facing the community, the Senegalese Association of America decided to mobilise.

First, it contacted the Senegalese consulate in New York to assist with tickets for the community. Late last week, Senegal’s government said it had reached a deal with Fifa to have some 800 tickets distributed to the community. 
Then, as it has done on previous occasions, it said it would host big watch parties on West 116th Street on match days for those who would not be able to make it to the game. 

West African restaurants and cafes across the area, from 116th Street up to those near 137th Street and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, are preparing to host bumper crowds for the game. 

A fixture to remember

On Tuesday, the Lions of Teranga, as the Senegalese team is fondly known, will take on France, considered one of the favourites of the competition, in its opening fixture of the tournament. 

For many Senegalese fans, the match will represent more than just football.

In the lead-up to the tournament, the fixture has already conjured memories of the two sides’ previous encounter 24 years ago, during Senegal’s first appearance at the tournament.

Aziz, the 42-year-old caregiver, says he was in Dakar during the World Cup 2002, when the two teams met in Seoul.

Back then, defending champions France, blessed with a squad of generational talent, were stunned by a scrappy 30th-minute goal by Papa Bouba Diop, sending Senegal into ecstasy. It led to France being embarrassingly dumped out in the first round. 

“Senegal rejoices as cock crows no more over Dakar,” the Guardian wrote of the game, in reference to Senegal’s victory over its former colonial ruler. 

Senegal would progress to the last eight in 2002. But for most fans, the victory against France was more than enough.

“It was like we had won the World Cup,” Aziz reminisces. It was such a momentous occasion that then-President Abdoulaye Wade declared a national holiday in Senegal. 

Max, the beauty product entrepreneur, also remembers the game fondly.

He says the difference between that team and the current one is that this side feels closer to a finished product, part of what many regard as Senegal’s golden generation.

“The team today know they are superstars,” Max told MEE, referring to players like Sadio Mané and Kalidou Koulibaly, widely considered modern-day African greats.

Since 2018, Senegal has qualified for the World Cup three times. In December 2025, it won the AFCON in Morocco, though that result was later disputed and awarded to Morocco.
“I feel like this is the year where we can really showcase who we are,” said Awa Diop, 27, one of the lucky ones with a ticket for the game on Tuesday, adding that if there had been no injuries, she would consider Senegal, along with Morocco, to be the best on the African continent. 
But Elhadji Nddour, a youth coordinator for the Senegalese American Association, plays down the symbolic nature of Tuesday’s fixture with France.
He says the country has its eyes on a bigger goal.
“We’re focusing on everybody, not just France, who is on our way to lift that trophy, because we came for the trophy,” he told MEE.
Senegalese fans from around the country, particularly in the tri-state area, are expected to arrive later on Monday for the big game.

Diop says that, given that many couldn’t come from Senegal, the community in the US will ensure they more than make up for their absence.

“I’m not really that stressed because I know within New York it’s a mini Senegal in itself, so I know the supporting factor is definitely going to be there for Senegal.

We got everything that they have in Senegal, whether it’s the drummers, the people that paint their faces, the people who dance. They’re all already here,” she said.

“So, like, when it comes to the side of support for Senegal, it’ll be there one hundred percent,” she said.