The curtains may have fallen on the 24th edition of the CAA Senior Athletics Championships in Ghana, but the echoes from Accra continue to reverberate across the continent.
Beneath the medals, records and national pride lies a pressing conversation about the future of African athletics, one that demands urgent action from governments, corporate institutions and the Confederation of African Athletics (CAA).
For all its flashes of brilliance, the championship also exposed a painful contradiction, Africa continues to produce some of the greatest athletes on earth, yet struggles to assemble those same stars on its own biggest stage.
The President of the Ghana Athletics Association, Bawah Fuseini, did not shy away from confronting that reality. In a candid reflection on the tournament, he revealed how Ghana fought to secure sponsorship for the continental event while grappling with the absence of many elite African athletes.
“We used some of our domestic athletes to be able to get the sponsorship from Ghana and we are also using some of the African athletes to be able to draw the African sponsorship but unfortunately we were not able to attract enough of the top Africa athletes to come for this championship that’s is why we were able to get local sponsors but unable to get international support but if we had the opportunity to incentify those top African athletes to come here we would have used their presence and participation to get international sponsorship for this competition.”
His words strike at the heart of the challenge confronting athletics on the continent. Sponsorship follows visibility, and visibility follows star power. Without Africa’s elite athletes competing consistently at the African Championships, the event risks losing commercial relevance in the fiercely competitive global sports market.
Fuseni pointed directly to football as the blueprint athletics must study.
“We can make comparison between the Confederation of African Football (CAF) and Confederation of Africa Athletics (CAA), anytime at all there is Africa Cup of Nations, almost all countries come with their best footballers that is why CAF always gets sponsorship for the Nations Cup, if we are not able to do that we will not get sponsorship.”
The comparison is difficult to ignore. The Africa Cup of Nations has become one of the continent’s most powerful sporting products because African nations treat it with prestige and priority. The continent’s biggest football stars proudly answer the call. Broadcasters invest heavily. Sponsors compete for visibility. Governments rally behind it.
Athletics, despite Africa’s dominance on the global stage, have yet to create that same continental identity around its flagship championship.
“Africa, we have the best athletes in the world but yet our best athletes, do not compete in our topmost event in Africa, that is something for the CAA to pick up.”
That statement should serve as a wake-up call for the CAA.
The future of the African Championships cannot continue to depend solely on the goodwill and sacrifice of host nations. What is urgently needed is a strong and enforceable policy framework from the CAA, one that protects the integrity and prestige of its elite competition.
Such a framework must prioritize mandatory elite participation where possible, better calendar alignment with global competitions, appearance incentives for top athletes, stronger commercial packaging and long-term sponsorship structures. Without these reforms, the championships may continue to struggle for relevance despite the continent’s unmatched athletic talent pool.
Fuseini admitted there are deeper structural challenges beyond athlete participation.
“To make sure that the top African athletes participate in African Championships, even though there are other challenges, with organization, with feeding, with technicalities. If we do not get the best to be able to get the money to fix those challenges these challenges will continue to be there.”
It becomes a vicious cycle: weak funding leads to organizational limitations, while organizational limitations make it harder to attract elite athletes and premium sponsors.
And at the center of it all remains Africa’s oldest sporting obstacle, funding.
“You know the African problem is funding. If a State is telling you that if you do the competition within this period, we will be able to fund you. But if you do it at other periods we will not be able to fund you. In Ghana we have a peculiar situation why we move the competition from July to May.”
The decision to move the championships to May became controversial in some quarters, especially because many African student-athletes based in the United States were unavailable. Yet Ghana insisted the move was necessary to secure government backing and avoid a direct clash with major international sporting events.
Fuseni explained the difficult balancing act.
“You know, football in Ghana is a totally different ballgame all together. When there is the World Cup nothing goes on. If you bring your program within the World Cup period you can rest assured that you will not get anyone’s attention but for Africa not to miss this championship we brought it to May knowing very well that some of the students are based in the US will not be able to come and participate that affects us too.”
Even Ghana itself suffered competitively from the absence of key athletes abroad.
“Because we also have some of our topmost athletes in the US academy system and they were not able to come or should we say that Ghana will not have their best athletes, the whole Africa should wait till August. The program is for Africa, not for Ghana or any other country that is why we put it in May so that we will be able to get the Government support, we will be able to get the Sport Ministry support in Ghana.”
The explanation underscores the complexity of hosting a continental event in Africa, where organizers must navigate government financing cycles, international calendars and logistical realities with limited resources.
Fuseni further detailed how the World Cup, the Commonwealth Games, the World Juniors Championships and the Youth Olympic Games all created scheduling complications.
“We considered all these things, before we came to the options of either we do it before the World Cup to avoid competitions or we push it to next year. And the second option was not an option we could have considered. So that is why we bought it in May, even though there were challenges but we finally came out successfully.”
Yet despite the obstacles, Ghana delivered the championships. And perhaps that is the strongest takeaway from Accra: Africa continues to stage world-class competitions through resilience, sacrifice and determination, often without the financial muscle available elsewhere.
But resilience alone cannot sustain elite sport forever.
For African athletics to truly evolve, Africa itself must stand firmly behind its championship. Governments must see sports as economic and diplomatic investments rather than ceremonial activities. Corporate Africa must recognize the commercial power of athletics. Most importantly, the CAA must establish policies that elevate the African Championships into a must-attend event for every elite African athlete.
Fuseni’s closing remarks carried both frustration and hope.
“We will continue to advocate for more funding, all these things we just mentioned are the functions of funding.”
“If we had gotten our own money we would have just gone ahead to buy our own tickets instead of going through an agency. We were praying that if we get the funding for ourselves, we do not need to go and buy tickets through a third party.”
Bawah Fuseini lamented, “It was just due to financial constraints that we went to all those other places. But going forward now that we have a sports fund in Ghana, next year I’m praying that things will be better in terms of sports funding.”
The message from Accra is just too loud, vivid, lucid and crystal clear. Africa does not lack talent. Africa does not lack passion. What Africa’s athletics ecosystem needs now is structure, commitment and a continental resolve to protect and elevate its own championship.
