One of the biggest events in Africa, the 2008 Nations Cup, kicks off at the end of the month in Ghana. The BBC World Service is ensuring you don't miss any of the action.

The World Today and Network Africa are teaming up to bring you special programmes, with all the news off the pitch.

They will be live from Accra on Friday, 18 January and Monday, 21 January.

Readers of the BBC News website are sending us their accounts of the role football plays in their lives.

Football to me is like opium. It is a good mix of intoxicating, passionate, crazy but loving sport. In my country Nigeria, nothing else can bind us together, not even our oil, religion, ethnicity nor our anti-corruption but only football. Oh football what can I do without thee? My mid-week and weekend will be so boring without thy fixtures. My wife thinks I have gone mad because I change our drapes at home to Arsenal prints; my bed sheet has a huge print of that wonder kid called Cesc Fabregas. On the walls in my sitting and bed room are huge posters of Pele, Maradona, Okocha, Kanu, Kaka, Henry, Zuzu da professor etc. It is like an archive of some sort.
Young Ozogwu, Abuja, Nigeria

Football means a tool of development to me. I am saying this is because more children have changed to better citizens because of football in the area where I live. I organize football leagues and tournaments. In 2006 we had 500 children and last year their number increased to 1400. It makes me happy when I see these children playing football.
Kelly Jones Kaila, Lusaka, Zambia

I am an African living in the United States, where I consider myself a self-appointed ambassador of the Black Stars of Ghana. Football means the world to me because it provides a temporary escape from reality. I am a football fan because it builds character through competition without violence. My love affair with football commenced during the 1990 World Cup when Roger Milla dazzled the world and after the twinkle, twinkle Black Starlets of Ghana won the U-17 World Cup in 1991. I have never looked back. Football has provided me some of the best memories in my life. This escape from the reality provides a feeling so sweet especially in victory that it even surpasses the joy of getting married.
Jahsly Kwabena Zagloul, Atlanta, US

I am a Ghanaian resident in the United States. I played soccer at high school and was a sports writer for the Ghana News Agency and the Daily Graphic. I covered the 1978 Nations Cup in Kumasi for the Graphic. It was football that took me to countries like Zambia and Burkina Faso with Asante Kotoko, and to Benin with Accra Hearts of Oak as a reporter. I grew up at Osu, just behind the Accra Sports Stadium and I hardly missed any soccer match there. I've seen the likes of Sir Stanley Matthews and Puskas play at the Accra Sports stadium and watch the Nigerian Green Eagles walloped to the tune of 7-0, each goal representing the letters forming the word Nigeria.
Lawrence Noi-Lartey, Orlando, Florida, United States

Football made me more popular at school because I was one of the best players in the school team and was loved by friends and the school authority. It also helped me greatly to be physically strong and fit.
Bah Ibrahim, Conakry, Guinea

Football is a source of happiness in my life when I'm in a state of distress. At the time of the civil war in my country Liberia, football was the only instrument used to get people together. Even rebels in the bushes and at frontlines monitored the game via radio.
Odjo Dweh Hammerfest, Norway