While remaining a key prestigious event, the African Football Night also becomes a platform engaging the sports community and public and private decision-makers to develop the African sports economy.
As a conclusion to 6th edition of The African Football Night, Foot Media Events and the Organizing Committee released the key facts and figures of the event held on 27 July in Lomé under the patronage of His Excellency Mr Faure GNASSINGBE, President of the Togolese Republic. With 6 awards given to African football legends including Daniel Amokachi, Shabani Nonda, TP Mazembe, Thierno Seydi, Mohamed Aboutrika and Emmanuel Adebayor, 614 participants to the Gala Dinner, a record attendance of 30,000 enthusiastic supporters at the newly inaugurated stadium of Kégué, 15 media partnerships, a panel and a business networking event dedicated to the African sports industry, the 6th edition of The African Football Night is definitely a success.
“The Togolese Republic was very proud to welcome this federating event in its capital, in line with Togo’s wish to host major Pan-African events,” said Folly Bazi Katari, Minister for Communication, Sports and Education to Citizenship of the Togolese Republic. “This event also gave us a great opportunity to present Togo’s efforts to promote sports activities, notably through the construction of new infrastructures and through the development of high-level training activities. Togo is committed to its athletes and federations and is keen to promote the sports industry as a whole,” he added.
A member of the organizing committee and director of Impulse Africa, Anne-Elvire Esmel spoke about the innovations of the 6th edition, whose theme was Sport and Development: “First, a business networking event allowed for presenting some key projects of interest to the sports community, including the AfricArena and DiaspoLab funds designed to support initiatives with a strong social and economic impact in Africa, and the MercyShips hospital ship project,” she explained, adding: “We then organized a high-level panel with Joseph-Antoine Bell, Jimmy Adjovi-Boco, Founder of the Diambars Institute, and Samba Bathily, President of the ADS Group, on economic development opportunities in the sector, particularly in terms of training and enhancing sports infrastructure“. These two concepts have been successfully tested and may be repeated again in the future.
“For the organization of this 6th edition, we have received incredible support from the Togolese authorities, to whom we are very grateful. The coordination process was very efficient and enabled us to reach a result that was beyond our ambitions. I also want to thank all the teams mobilized in Lome, Abidjan, Ouagadougou, Dakar and Paris for their dedication, enthusiasm and professionalism. The African Football Night demonstrates that we now have the African skills and competences to deliver high-quality events on this continent, “said Yves Sawadogo, President of Foot Media Events and promoter of the project. “We want to remain a key milestone in the African sports calendar while becoming a reference platform bringing together sports communities closer to the private sector and public decision-makers, in order to allow for concrete projects in favour of the sport in Africa to emerge” he added, explaining his long-term vision.
A documentary film focussing on key highlights of July 27 will soon be available. The teams have already started to prepare for the next edition, following the same approach consisting in involving sports communities, public institutions and private sector actors and encouraging them to act positively in favour of the development of sports value chains in Africa.
