Esports at the 13th African Games 2023, Accra
Esports is gaining more attention across the world with many more international events and more prominent is the much talked about Esports World Cup!
The Africa Games which has been delayed from August 2023 officially closed 23 March 2024 with a magnificent ceremony in Accra, the capital city of Ghana. Athletes from 52 nations competed at the African Games. The event span over three-weeks and served as the qualifying event for the 2024 Paris Olympics.
One of the interesting disciplines was esports which was slated as a demonstration event alongside others such as pickleball, mixed martial arts and scrabble. This felt disappointing to many esports athletes and enthusiasts across the continent as many have been working tirelessly to make esports a recognised major sporting event as can be seen in other parts of the world.
Much more disappointing was the lack of information on the esports event. Many had no idea how athletes were picked for the event and how they could engage with the event. There was no public information readily available on the venue, the date and time of the event. It all felt like an after thought and something was cobbled together in the last minute to represent esports.
Esports events in other parts of the world hold a prominent position on major events calendar and have surpassed major traditional sports events in attendance, engagement, and participation. Many esports’ athletes and enthusiast who have been longing for the opportunity of a major event on the African continent felt this was a missed opportunity by the organisers to boldly make their mark with esports on the continent.
Eventually when the event was organised somehow, FC24 and eFootball featured as the only two genres. A lot of effort was put in by the Ghana Esports Federation (GesF) who managed to provide athletes to represent Ghana at the last minute for this event on Friday 22 March 2024.
The finals of the eFootball event featured Egypt and Ghana, with Egypt taking home the gold medal. In a similar result the finals of the FC24 event featured Togo and Ghana, with Togo taking home the gold medal.
Following the information of the event coming online as reported by the social media handle of the Ghana Esports Federation (GesF), many esports athletes in the country are up in arms calling for an investigation locally into how the event was organised in the country with no information made public , no qualifiers and even providing them the opportunity to come and experience the event at such a major tournament when it was finally organised.
Esports Africa News speaking exclusively to the President of Ghana Esports Federation, Mr Igor Boumekpo, has been informed GesF will provide a public statement in due course addressing concerns raised directly and online in connection with developments leading to the event.
What is the Africa Games Event
The Africa Games, formerly called the All-African Games, are planned to be held every four years, the year before the Olympics. At this year’s event held in Accra, Ghana, 52 countries are competing, making it an actual pan-African sporting event.
A record number of about 5,000 athletes showed great skills in competition to win medals and break records in 30 disciplines, an increase from the 2019 African Games, which offered 26 sports. The 2015 Games had 22 disciplines.
Events were held in Accra, Cape Coast and Kumasi, Ghana’s second-largest city.
