I watched, like millions of Africans, as DR Congo competed at the 2026 FIFA World Cup. For a moment, the joy of our neighbours felt like our own—a Great Lakes representative on football’s biggest stage. But as the noise faded, a familiar question returned: when will Rwanda’s Amavubi be there?

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We are a nation of immense ambition. We have seen Rwanda rise from tragedy to become a symbol of stability, tourism, and infrastructure development. As a son of these hills, I feel that pride deeply. But I also feel a quiet discomfort when some say we do not have talent to take us to the World Cup stage. I think it has less to do with talent and everything to do with space.

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We often seek "big” answers to big dreams: professional academies, elite coaching, and sports centres. Rwanda’s sports transformation in the past decade has indeed been remarkable. BK Arena has made Kigali a basketball hub, Amahoro Stadium has been renovated into a world-class venue, and we have global partnerships with PSG and Bayern Munich. Now, we are on the NBA market. These show a country that has decided sport is part of its future.

However, there is a quieter, more ordinary piece of the puzzle we are neglecting: the humble, free pitch.

I am talking about the dusty space where children use stones as goalposts and play until the sun goes down. The open field where nobody asks, "have you booked?” or "who is paying?” Elite pathways are, by design, narrow; they polish the few who are already found. The wide base of the talent pyramid must be built on free, everyday access. Without that base, we are merely shining a handful of diamonds while ignoring the mine.

In Kigali today, apart from walking, it is increasingly difficult to engage in sport without money. Almost every football pitch is behind a gate with a price list.

Want to play five-a-side with friends? Pay.

Want a small tournament for neighbourhood kids? Pay.

Want your children to simply run and kick a ball? Pay.

Try to find a pitch you can just walk onto without a booking or a fee—you will struggle. While this may make sense for business, it is reshaping who gets to dream of becoming a footballer in Rwanda. When access to a ball and grass depends on a family’s or one’s wallet, talent identification stops being about ability and starts being about affordability.

In rural areas, the picture is equally concerning. Informal "street pitches"—dusty clearings or school fields—are disappearing under new housing, fences and crops. In many schools, playgrounds are giving way to classroom blocks or dormitories. The very spaces where a child could once discover, freely and unsupervised, that they can dribble past three friends are vanishing. The result is profound: only children who can afford access to pitches get to play regularly. We are trying to produce elite footballers from a very narrow pipe of opportunity. This is a dangerous filter for a nation with World Cup dreams.

Sports science and common sense agree: the foundations of great athletes are laid in hours of free play, not just organized training. Free play builds creativity and resilience. It is where a child dares to try a risky move again and again without a coach shouting or a clock ticking. without pressure to "be efficient”. These open fields are where community is built. On those grounds, youth negotiate rules and solve conflicts. Lose that, and we do not only lose future professionals; we lose part of our social fabric.

Look at the nations we admire. Before Sadio Mané became a star, he was a boy kicking a ball barefoot on the sandy ground of Bambali in Senegal. Brazil’s legends grew out of pelada—informal street football—long before an academy badge touched their chests. The history of English football is written not only in stadiums, but also on free park pitches after school. Even Iceland, with a population smaller than Kigali, reached the Euro 2016 quarterfinals partly because it built accessible football halls in every town.

Rwanda once understood this power of access. The Amavubi squad that took us to the 2004 Africa Cup of Nations was built on players shaped by strong Interscolaire competitions, when school pitches were open and participation was free. Names like Jimmy Gatete and Désiré Mbonabucya came from an era when children could play in the streets or on school grounds without paying a cent. The road to Tunisia 2004 did not start in an academy; it started on rough, free ground.

The question of public, free pitches—especially in Kigali—is not a small complaint. It is a strategic necessity. What makes a child from Nyamasheke eventually run out at Amahoro Stadium? It begins with somewhere free to play today.

I urge our city planners, sports federations, and private partners to imagine a different Rwanda: a country where every sector has at least one truly free, decent pitch. We need a nation where school playgrounds are protected and rural fields are treated as vital investments, not just empty land waiting to be developed.

This is not anti-business. On the contrary, this is how you feed professionalism. Elite academies depend on thousands of children who have already fallen in love with the game on their own terms. The wider and freer the base, the higher the pyramid can rise.

If we get this right, a child from our furthest hills will one day walk out onto a World Cup pitch wearing our colours. When that day comes, we will celebrate the great stadiums, but we must also remember the simple, open fields where their journey truly began. Fields that belonged to everyone.

Let the academies build our stars.

Let the free pitches build our nation’s football soul.

Together, they can turn Rwanda’s World Cup dream from a hope into a plan.

The writer is a scholar, author, and peacebuilder who is the founder and director of Be The Peace, a global movement to halt the intergenerational transmission of hate.