Shutabug' Returns With The Beautiful Game Deluxe Edition for WAFCON 2026

The Lagos-based multidisciplinary artist returns with a deluxe edition of his viral The Beautiful Game series this time celebrating the women reshaping African football.

As the 2026 Women's Africa Cup of Nations gets underway, the spotlight naturally falls on the players set to shape the tournament. But beyond the stadiums and scorelines, artists are telling a different story. Lagos-based multidisciplinary visual artist Mayowa "Shutabug" Alabi returns with a deluxe edition of his acclaimed The Beautiful Game series, this time turning his attention to the women carrying African football into a new era.

The collection includes women's national teams competing at the WAFCON 2026

Beyond Competition

In a previous conversation with Cult Kits, Alabi explained that The Beautiful Game was created as "an attempt to make football's beauty visible not just its competition."

That philosophy runs through every illustration.

Rather than chasing anatomical perfection or recreating famous match moments, his players dissolve into bold geometric forms, oversized jerseys and fragmented movement. Limbs become rhythm. Football appears to float effortlessly through space.

Football Through Colour and Form

Looking across the collection, each illustration carries its own personality while remaining unmistakably part of the same universe.

The Senegal-inspired piece wraps its subject in deep greens and cream tones, balancing a football effortlessly above their head a portrait of control and elegance rather than spectacle.

Another illustration, dressed in Côte d'Ivoire's unmistakable orange, captures a figure frozen somewhere between celebration and dance, suggesting that football and culture have always shared the same rhythm.

The women's portraits feel equally expressive. One wears Senegal's iconic green star across the chest, her gaze fixed confidently on a ball suspended in front of her. Another composition layers rich reds, greens and golds into sweeping angular forms that seem to move long after you've stopped looking.

His deluxe edition arrives at a moment when women's football is commanding more attention across the continent. Rather than documenting the tournament itself, Alabi celebrates something more enduring: the beauty of the people who play it.