Africa is rich with talent. The continent is massive, and it produces a tremendous amount of world-class athletes that go on to thrive in every sport and league imaginable, from the Premier League to the NFL.
But we are still to see African national teams win a major senior tournament outside of the continent. Or for an African club to actually challenge for a Club World Cup (or for other clubs other than Al-Ahly to win the CAF Champions Leaguefor that matter). For domestic leagues do be attractive for foreign viewers. The truth is that we still need to see a truly solid product come out of the motherland besides the individual players it produces.
As usual, we must go back to the financial and organizational side of things. There is not enough money going into African football. Both public and private sector agents prefer to invest in other sectors, leaving football and sport in general aside. I cannot blame them, though, as pressing issues such as famine, access to clean water, basic infrastructure, etc. should and will continue to be the priorities. Most clubs that thrive in this context are the ones that have a passionate private investor that is not afraid to take some losses for a couple of years.
Without robust investments, everything else that happens is just the consequence. Infrastructure in general is very precarious. Stadiums and pitches are not well maintained, most clubs do not have training facilities and even the ones that do, usually do not have a properly equipped medical department, refectory, gym, player housing, etc. This creates clear limitations for senior teams and their day-to-day preparation, but also reflects on the club as a whole. In such scenarios it’s very hard to develop a youth team structure, or women’s football for example.
To add to this already challenging context, are the lack of organization from local federations and leagues, and the rampant corruption that sweeps through them. I cannot speak for every country but the ones that I’m familiar with all have the same dynamics. Leagues and federations provide minimal operational support, and do not have coherently planned logistics. Clubs do their best to cope with paying for hotels, transport, and meals, all of this often having to plan an away trip 2-3 days before the actual match. Then comes the corruption piece. Most referees are involved in match fixing schemes, and the leagues and federations themselves pocket all of the money that should be redirected to the clubs, including TV rights deals and tournament prizes.
With so many difficulties, it is actually quite impressive that so many African players still manage to reach the best levels of professional football. How much more could be done in the collective sense, if governments, federations, national teams and clubs fought to change the current status-quo? The talent is there, we just need to create the conditions for it to flourish.
