A few months ago, Federation Internationale de Football Association’s (FIFA) president, Gianni Infantino, suggested that the African Super League (ASL)[1] was gaining momentum. On July 19, 2021, a feasibility committee was nominated at the Confederation of African Football’s (CAF) executive committee meeting. The ASL seems to be now a matter of time and a plan on how it is going to be structured. It is not a simple venture, raising questions and inquiries between resistance and approval. The African Basketball League launched with success and great media attention in 2021, certainly an example of a successful pan-African competition that the ASL can emulate. Beyond the mediatic and organizational success, here’s a good question worth asking: How can an African football super league help African football development (from Dakar to Mogadishu, and from Cairo to Johannesburg) by finding solutions to the various deficits (financial, technical, and professional) hampering the development of African football?
Recommended and instigated by FIFA and the commodification of elite football worldwide, professional football leagues are in place in most African countries. These leagues are now established across the continent. Regardless of their ability to have the necessary financial resources to sustain professional governance, clubs, and players, all these leagues still represent the national football elite and the best the country can offer its spectators, fans, and players. Yet the circumstances differ across the continent and can be categorized into two groups. The largest group is mostly in sub-Saharan Africa, where the leagues, playing conditions, game quality, and production are not optimal. Facilities are dilapidated and poorly maintained; many players are without contracts and have low and irregularly paid salaries. The second group encompasses a few North African countries, South Africa, and sub-Saharan African clubs; this group has professional management, well-established governance, well-paid players, and quality competitions and facilities. This group of countries and the few clubs have dominated the Confederation of African Football (CAF) Champions League results for the past 15 to 20 years. The results of the club competitions illustrate the gap between the top leagues and clubs and the rest of the professional leagues. Except for Morocco, Tunis, and Egypt (and, to some extent, Algeria and South Africa), very few clubs from the rest of the continent really compete to win the African Champions Leagues. The second club competition, the Confederation Cup, displays a similar pattern, with some exceptions. African football played on the continent has de facto two divisions: the dominant group of a few clubs in a few countries and the rest of the continent. These clubs represent the backdrop of the announced African Super League.
Unequal and difficult continental environment for professional football
A considerable gap exists between the clubs playing in the African clubs’ competition. The gap is financial and organizational. Most African elite leagues and clubs do not have the capability to fully professionalize their management, the clubs, and the players. With the limited number of government subsidies, these leagues and clubs are left with weak revenues. Fundraising, marketing, and sponsorship mobilization capacity and opportunities are not often optimal. Although the blame is often put on the management’s incompetency or corruption, a socio-economic and cultural environment in most countries is not ripe for a commercialized professional entertainment sport.
The numbers of African countries’ youth unemployment, under-employment, and employment in the informal sector[2] strongly indicate some of the challenges football commercialization (driven by young Africans’ consumption) can face. Given the fact that sports consumption is mostly driven by youth and young professionals in their twenties, thirties, and forties, a critical mass of sports consumers in that age group is very unlikely to drive football commercialization in most African countries. The second opportunity in Africa for successful football commercialization is the growing middle class with more purchasing power. It is a fact that this group has increased across the continent. Nevertheless, these numbers are aggregated numbers, which is a less critical mass for national consumption of entertainment such as sports (the exception being the large population in countries such as Nigeria and Egypt). The other factor limiting the viability of sports commercialization driven by the “middle class” is the absence of a sport-spectacle consumption culture among those who can afford it. Sport competes with the strong presence of other forms of entertainment and the individual social responsibilities that characterize African families and societies. In an extremely privatized environment (with limited-to-no government intervention to mitigate social net deficiencies such as unemployment benefits, health insurance, etc.), African elites have an important individual social responsibility that considerably erodes their disposable income to spend on entertainment. Taking care of extended family and paying school fees, medical bills, and funeral expenses are a large part of the responsibility of the middle class.
The success of large-scale paid entertainment, such as professional football, banks on a solid economic environment with young professionals with disposable income. It requires a social demographic able to spend and willing to do so. Without these two elements, sports, in a large sense, are too limited to survive.
Corporate involvement in financing sport
In most African countries, the corporate and business environment is another constraining factor to consider when discussing sport commercialization. Corporations wealthy enough to finance football are not many. The first reason is the financial reality of investing in football and sport in general. It is a global fact that the return on investment in clubs and federations is low. Investment in sports and football is often considered by individuals with a fortune large enough to accommodate low-return investments while enjoying media exposure as a benefactor with high social and public status. The opportunity to help gives that investor a feel-good effect and perhaps a political positioning. Thus, in this case, philanthropy and patronage, in the form of community social responsibility, may turn out well when the benefactor is passionate about having a successful football venture. But the financial limits of sports club investment are often a deterrent for those people who are not interested in sports for social good and for their psychological satisfaction. The absence of dividend shares to football clubs’ shareholders is an additional indicator of the effective financial value of football assets.[3] Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski argued, “Football is neither big business nor good business” (Kuper, 2014, p. 49). Nevertheless, it is an economic and social activity that is important to society, community, states, and individuals’ lives.
African football challenges
In addition to the factors mentioned earlier that are independent of football itself, challenges inherent in how football is organized and managed are also limiting factors for its commercialization. Scientific and technical competencies such as coaching, exercise physiology, athletic training, marketing, and management are often not consistently part of the administration and management of football clubs. These absences handicap the quality of the game and the ability to attract large audiences, media, sponsors, and patrons. It is, therefore, a challenge for football clubs and leagues to create a virtuous circle of commercialization.
The commercialization of elite football in many African countries is an intricate puzzle to put together. Lifting the leagues and clubs to the level of professionalism requires a combination of complex social, economic, cultural, and educational factors. Professional football teetering on private investments and contributions requires corporations, broadcasters, and individuals to spend their financial resources on assets with an intangible return.
Even when fully privatized, elite football relies on a broad support system. In contrast, small, amateur clubs have volunteer coaches and staff who work, over time, with millions of youths. At these lower levels, the supporting infrastructure includes dedicated individuals and uses subsidies from the government, municipalities, and other territorial administrations. That’s how staff, training, and the necessary resources can sustain the large amateur segment of African football. Local patrons, small community businesses, and individuals contribute to the amateur clubs. Importantly, the quality of amateur football systems affects the quality of the elite sector. In fact, amateur structured and organized football—with competent coaches and administrators—indicates an articulated football system that coherently connects every level, from the grassroots level to the professionalized elite. Professional football without amateur grassroots participation (through small clubs or the school system) would be a tree without roots.
To summarize, professional elite football across Africa is challenged by nonconducive circumstances for privatized and commercialized football. These circumstances will define the African Super League (ASL) that FIFA and CAF want to implement. Therefore, it is important to consider if the ASL can effectively contribute to transforming the circumstances. On the other hand, the ASL may create a league that will be well run—with all the necessary tools and commercial agreements—yet will not reflect the reality of most African leagues and clubs in sub-Saharan Africa.
African Super League viability
A well-organized and financed ASL, like the African Club of Nations (AFCON), will project a positive image of African football globally. With the support of FIFA, the league will most likely benefit from FIFA’s marketing machine, which will support ASL’s ability to attract sponsorship and media rights. For the clubs participating, the benefit will also be substantial. In fact, they can generate revenues that their local league and the current CAF competitions cannot engender. These revenues will reinforce the professionalization and the performance of the participating clubs. As the current African clubs’ performances indicate, ASL will most likely be led by those clubs already dominating the CAF Champions League (ACL) and the Confederation Cup (ACC). The ASL may become a consolidated competition of the ACL and the ACC—albeit with stronger marketing, financial support, sponsorship, and media appeal. With the promised new stadium and the few stadiums recently constructed in countries such as Cameroon and Côte d’Ivoire, the ASL can project a very polished image of African football. Unfortunately, few countries will have such modern facilities, and few will be able to host a high-standard club and competition. Having just a few venues capable of hosting a high-profile competition also means that only a few clubs will be eligible for the ASL. The question is, then, what about the rest?
The ASL can potentially exacerbate the gap between a few clubs and the rest in Africa. The dominance of Al Ahly in the ACL is an indicator that the African clubs’ competitions have lost the competitive balance that existed in the 1980s and 1990s. The loss was mostly because most of the sub-Saharan football clubs saw their best players leave for teams outside Africa. Additionally, the management of many of the top sub-Saharan African clubs in the 1980s and 1990s did not evolve from amateur patron-driven football clubs to professional organizations. A few clubs, such as the Tout Puissant Mazembé in the DRC, managed the transition and remained competitive. A few lesser-known clubs, well-backed by a corporation or a state (such as Cotton Sport in Cameroon and Enyimba in Nigeria) were at some point competitive as well. But many clubs with a strong African presence in the 1980s and 1990s (such as ASEC d’Abidjan in Côte d’Ivoire, Ashanti Kotoko in Ghana, or Canon of Yaoundé in Cameroon) slowly faded away from the African clubs’ top scene. Can the ASL bring back some of these historical clubs? Can they regain their competitiveness? It is hoped that ASL can foster a professional governance and management system to improve the competitive balance across the continent and contribute to a more attractive continental clubs’ competition. But this is not a given when we observe the European Champions League’s evolution.
In fact, the current trend in European football of powerful clubs [which led to the attempt to create the European Super League (ESL)] illustrates some of the externalities inherent in the highly commodified football which took root in Europe with the creation of Leagues separated from the Football Association (FA). In fact, although there was a rejection of the European Super League, the reality is that the UEFA Champions League (UCL) is already a form of the super league, which progressively had set apart a few powerful clubs. Increasingly tailored competitions were designed to protect the top clubs from eventual early elimination and guarantee substantial participation bonuses paid to teams at the group stage. These bonuses are not accessible to other clubs which are eliminated at the early stage of the competition or not qualified. The UCL bonuses consequently increase the financial and sporting gap and inequality among the regular UCL participants and the rest of the European clubs. European football has two categories of football: first, the performant and rich clubs from a few leagues, and second, the rest of Europe. The bonuses reward the best clubs; however, they have also endangered (if not eliminated) the competitive balance in the European clubs’ competitions and the national leagues.
Similarly, the ASL inherently has the potential to create a super elite of a few clubs across the continent. Those clubs will progressively be set apart in their local league. With better management and financial capacity, they will recruit the best local talent and eliminate the local competitive balance de facto. The need to compete often justifies the argument for having a hyper-elitist league and clubs. Those who cannot compete must do better to reach the top—to benefit from the same privileges and resources as the top clubs. Theoretically, the best clubs will pull the rest of the clubs, which are supposed to get better by emulation.
From a sport-development perspective, the ASL must invest in football-development capacity at every level, employing numerous competent coaches and administrators. If this requirement is not fulfilled, the ASL will reinforce the gaps between the top clubs and the rest of the continent’s football. Presently a few well-funded clubs, football academies, and leagues have not really created a continent-wide transformation of the football system. Parts of the African system needing progress include financial, technical, and professional capabilities. Without an investment in football-development capacity, the ASL will become another beautiful façade of African football. This is what happened to CAN with the foreign-based players. The drive for an elite, well-funded football league risks widening the fracture between a selected few in North Africa, South Africa, and the rest of sub-Saharan Africa.
Understandably, African football sports fans and lovers crave quality African football competitions that can feed the continent’s pride. The Basketball African League (BAL) had provided these few weeks of pride and moments of “we can too.” These are legitimate and important moments and quests for African sports fans. The ASL will have an impact on African football and its image. It will help retain a few good players on the continent or delay their migration toward European football. On the other hand, what if the ASL becomes a safe testing ground for European clubs for their African recruit prospects? Nevertheless, the rush for elite programs, professional leagues, and academies may not achieve a real football-development goal.
Such elite programs must be implemented along with strong, well-designed, and well-funded accompanying measures for the overall development of the football value chain. Spontaneous trickle-down development may not really accomplish a scaled transformation of African football. Without an accompanied development of the football value chain, the ASL could rapidly become an isolated elite league with 20 teams (fewer than 500 players) for a continent of more than one billion people. It is important for CAF and FIFA to engage in a long-term transformation of African football management culture and governance, with massive coaching programs including millions of mini-football pitches accessible to all kids in their neighborhoods. African football development needs a new paradigm supported by a football philosophy with large-scale participation to potentially lead to an inclusive development of a football economic.
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[1] Gianni Infantino suggested the African Super League in Morocco on February 2020 (Ayishatu, 2021)
[2] Youths account for 60% of all of Africa’s jobless, according to the World Bank (Ighobor, 2017). Of the 38.1% estimated total working poor in sub-Saharan Africa, young people account for 23.5% (International Labour Organization, s. d.)
[3]“It’s a high-risk investment with relatively low returns,” says Mr. Maguire. “You’ve got so many retail investors who are investing from an emotional rather than a financial perspective.” Kieran Maguire is the author of the book The Price of Football (Janiaud, 2020).
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References
Ayishatu, Z. A. (2021, mars 12). FIFA President proposes Super League for Africa. – Sport News Africa. https://sportnewsafrica.com/en/breve/fifa-president-proposes-super-league-for-africa/
Ighobor, K. (2017, février 23). Africa’s jobless youth cast a shadow over economic growth. Africa Renewal. https://www.un.org/africarenewal/magazine/special-edition-youth-2017/africas-jobless-youth-cast-shadow-over-economic-growth
ILO. (s. d.). Youth employment in Africa (Africa). International Labor Organisation. Consulté 19 juillet 2021, à l’adresse https://www.ilo.org/africa/areas-of-work/youth-employment/lang–en/index.htm
Janiaud, A. (2020, octobre 8). Do football clubs make good investments? https://www.investorschronicle.co.uk/shares/2020/10/08/do-football-clubs-make-good-investments/
Kuper, S. (2014). Soccernomics : Why England Loses, Why Spain, Germany, and Brazil Win, and Why the US, Japan, AustraliaÑand Even IraqÑAre Destined to Become the Kings of the World’s Most Popular Sport. Nation Books.