Zanzibar national football team March 2017, Zanzibar were admitted to the Confederation of African Football, becoming eligible for the Africa Cup of Nations. The invite was rescinded in July when FIFA rules forbade two national teams from one country. Zanzibar national football team The Zanzibar national football team is the national football team of Zanzibar and is controlled by the Zanzibar Football Association. Zanzibar is not a member of FIFA and is therefore not eligible to enter the World Cup. The island is part of the nation of Tanzania, which holds FIFA recognition at the international level. Prior to the union of Zanzibar and
Sultanate of Zanzibar furthered the country's progress toward abolishing slavery. According to the 16th-century explorer Leo Africanus, the native inhabitants of the Zanzibar (Zanguebar) sultanate were for the most part pagans with curly hair and a black complexion. However, the denizens of the northernmost Zanzibar kingdom of Malindi were Muslims of an almost white complexion, with some pagan black inhabitants among them. Until 1884, the Sultans of Zanzibar controlled a substantial portion of the Swahili Coast, known as Zanj, and trading routes extending further into the continent, as far as Kindu on the Congo River. That year, however, the Society for German Colonization