SPORTS MARKETING
Africa Cup Of Nations:
Africa Sports Con or
Confidence In African
Sports?
By Richard Wanjohi
“
Play has become spectacle, with few
protagonists and many spectators,
soccer for watching. And that spectacle
has become one of the most profitable
businesses in the world, organized not for
play but rather to impede it. The technocracy
of professional sport has managed to impose
a soccer of lightning speed and brute
strength, a soccer that negates joy, kills
fantasy and outlaws daring. Luckily, on the
field you can still see, even if only once in
a long while, some insolent rascal who sets
aside the script and commits the blunder
of dribbling past the entire opposing side,
the referee, and the crowd in the stands,
all for the carnal delight of embracing the
forbidden adventure of freedom.” Eduardo
Galeano – Soccer in Sun and Shadow. of discrimination within our football and
in all domains of life. We do not accept
the division of Africa into Francophone,
Anglophone, and Arabophone. Arabs
from north Africa and Zulus from South
Africa, we are all authentic Africans. Those
who try to divide us by way of football are
not our friends.”
At inception in 1957, the Confederation
of African Football (CAF), started with an
ambitious plan seeking to ‘unite emerging
African nations’ through football. Ethiopia’s
Yidnekatchew Tessema - one of CAF’s
founding fathers during a CAF Congress
in 1974 gave a rallying call by noting the
following; “I'm issuing a call to our general
assembly that it affirms that Africa is one
and indivisible, that we work towards
the unity of Africa together... That we
condemn superstition, tribalism, all forms Gradually the tournament has grown to
be one of the biggest sports extravaganzas
on the continent. It has also managed to
attract interests among major corporate
brands. In July 2016, Total secured an
eight-year sponsorship package from the
Confederation of African Football (CAF)
to support 10 of its principal competitions.
The wave of independence was sweeping
across African states, this was one sport
that was thought to be a unifier of the
masses. This saw the inception of Africa
Cup of Nations as a flagship of CAF. There
was borne a tournament of continental
proportions which has had its rough and
tumble as well as memorable and historic
moments.
The tournament has also been expanded
from the 16 to 24 teams with the aim
of attracting wider interest across the
While Egypt was able to host the tournament,
the worrying state has been the missing fans
from the stadia. African audiences are known
to love their football and are still hungry for
some live action. This has not been the case
in Egypt and this was exacerbated by the de-
parture of the Pharaohs in the second round.
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continent. It is also hoped to speed up
growing the various national football
leagues.
“Throughout the tournament (2010
World Cup), one could see that African
soccer had conserved its agility but lost its
inventiveness and daring, lots of running
but little dancing. There are those who
believe the managers, nearly all of them
from Europe, cast a chilling effect. If
true, they did scant favor for a soccer
that promised so much exuberance.
Africa sacrificed its flair in the name
of efficacy, and efficacy shone by its
absence. Many African players worthy
of their heritage of good soccer live and
play on the continent that enslaved their
ancestors.” Eduardo Galeano
With rapid growth of the Africa Cup of
Nations, comes the vagaries of keeping
up with the pace of expansion and
growing across the different regions of
the continent. A couple of premises and
developments have been observed and
here’s a preview;
Frequency
First the frequency of the tournament
is bound to stretch even the richest of
resource-rich countries. While the last
couple of host nations have enjoyed
a fair share of economic growth, the
possibility and prospects of hosting such
a tournament have been largely the work
of their political and national leaders.
It is also where national federations
can bring together corporate and local
support for the game.