We did a 4-tier list of the best football leagues in the world. The criteria was player profile, quality of football clubs and international competitiveness. No football league in Africa made the list. What can be done to change this?
It is important for football administrators in Africa to be deliberate about transforming their clubs, leagues and federations. This is usually lacking and it’s why we stumble from one half-hearted solution to another.
Let’s quickly go through the six things that can change the situation of football leagues in Africa:
1. Establish a Vision – There needs to be a clear path about where the league aspires to be over a certain period of time. This will determine the kind of leadership to go for and what the priority areas will be. Take the example of Japan, who have a target of how many professional clubs they want. An African football league can have aspirations around attendance, revenue or continental success.
2. Competition Format – A lot of fans mistakenly take this matter to be sacrosanct. Truth is that you need to change your competition format to not only better engage fans but respond to alternative entertainment options. Is your league experiencing increasing or decreasing stadium attendance and TV viewership? Some of the questions to be raised are around title contenders, giving mid-table purpose and what to think around relegation – if it should even exist in the first place but that’s a story for another day š
3. Club Structure – We should stop celebrating the patronage model that is so prevalent across Africa. It leads to situations where clubs spend unsustainably by racking up debt or being beholden to a rich benefactor. Look at TP Mazembe as a cautionary tale. It also makes it more difficult to get legitimate investors and long-term sponsors. Administrators need to conceptualize and implement an ecosystem where clubs can attract investors and be financially sustainable. Egypt and South Africa’s football investment arrangements are flawed.
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4. Media Rights – I’m looking at you Algeria and your poor broadcast quality. Anyway, media rights have to be sold commercially and strategically to achieve maximum revenue for clubs and to extend the reach as wide as possible. It is also necessary to take OTT and Social Media seriously. Have you seen how weak CAF’s highlights usually are? Are they serious?
5. Partnerships – We’re starting to see signs of it with the African Clubs Association. But it’s a shame that this is being created under the umbrella of CAF when it should be acting as a counterparty. African leagues need to explore partnerships to get more expertise and increase the fanbase. Off the top of my head, there’s the diaspora communities to be tapped into and even preseason competitions to take advantage of friendly neighborhood rivalries. Let’s think.
6. Stadium Access – Africa (and most of the world) needs to move away from the concept of a stadium as a standalone facility located far from where people live. You need to integrate sports infrastructure with communities. This necessarily means building smaller facilities instead of the cauldrons that get filled up a few times a year. It is also good to support access in the case where these terrible stadiums already exist in the form of transport support and free entry.
CAF Observer 