Concerns over African Games organisation
Calistus Kolantsho | Friday June 14, 2019 12:46
The Africa Union Sports Council (AUSC) gave the contract to ANOCA, to deliver the 2019 African Games (formerly All Africa Games), which will be held in the cities of Casablanca and Rabat.
Morocco was selected to replace Malabo, Equatorial Guinea as the host of the 2019 edition. ANOCA has always organised the Africa Youth Games, which Botswana hosted in 2014. But there were concerns that ANOCA hijacked the youth games for commercial purposes, particularly when it came to revenue shares amongst member states.
AUSC Region V chief executive officer (CEO), Stanley Mutoya told Mmegi Sport that it is the first time that ANOCA is organising the Games and it is early to make judgement.
“This is the first edition and it is too early to conclude. Let us give them time, then we reflect after the Games in September,” he said.
For his part, CEO of Botswana National Olympic Committee (BNOC), Tuelo Serufho argued that he did not understand where the hijacking part emanates from.
“ANOCA is a continental body under the International Olympic Committee (IOC), so they report to the IOC. ANOCA and the AUSC have entered into a Memorandum of Agreement that states that ANOCA would deliver the Games on behalf of AUSC,” Serufho said.
He explained that ANOCA gives grants to participating countries through National Olympic Committees. BNOC is working with the Botswana National Sport Commission (BNSC) to assist Team Botswana for the Games. Mutoya said the Games are owned by member states. He said there had been delays in the planning of the Games due to the changes made when Equatorial Guinea announced it was no longer hosting.
“It took AUSC a while to get a replacement until last year November when Morocco offered to host. There has been a crash programme in trying to host the games that should be prepared in four years, to a few months,” he said.
Mutoya said the delays are causing challenges in terms of the normal process of the African Games.
He said team sports have to go through qualification and individual codes have to meet qualifying standards.
“That has presented a bit of pressure for ANOCA in terms of organising the Games because of the time frame,” he said. He said some countries have been complaining in terms of how the logistics of managing the Games have been going.
“They have been complaining how ANOCA appoint chef de missions and there have been a few displeasures amongst the countries. But that does not mean ANOCA is no longer organising African Games,” Mutoya said.
He said the African Games remain the premier event on the continent and any athlete wants to participate. Mutoya said there is a lot that needs to be improved around event management.
“Instead of a country organising an event for four years, it is given nine months. It becomes difficult to put up a real show. Africa has improved technically,” Mutoya said. “I have some reservations around infrastructure. Africa still has a lot to do that we need to do around modernisation of sports infrastructure. We still have contemporary infrastructure.”
He said Africa is still pegged back to old school by using facilities like universities as Games villages. He said that affects the quality of athletes who attend the Games.
“A few of our iconic athletes tend to have excuses when they see that the standards are low. I am not saying that would happen this year, but we experienced that in Maputo (2011) and Brazzaville (2015). We are now working on Ghana 2023 and these are the aspects that we are raising with the government of Ghana. These are the elements that can help us to elevate the Africa Games brand,” Mutoya said.
Meanwhile, Mutoya argued for Africa to continue hosting world competitions, the rest of the countries are needed.
He said that associated with infrastructure is the capacity around the continent in terms of what calibre of sport administrators are in office.
“Who is managing our sport in the Ministries of Sports, Sports Commissions, Sports Federations because that capacity translates into visionary planning and charismatic forecasting of where our sport must go. If we are challenged in terms of capacity, we are still going to see stadiums constructed at the quality that is in the 1990s while in the 21st century,” Mutoya argued.