Ghana Athletics president Bawah Fuseini has called for urgent reforms after the 24th CAA Senior Athletics Championships in Accra highlighted what he described as deep-rooted structural problems across African track and field, from elite participation gaps to chronic funding shortfalls.
Key takeaways
- Bawah Fuseini said the event struggled to attract Africa’s leading athletes, which undermined its commercial prospects.
- He argued that limited participation made it difficult to secure international sponsorship, forcing organizers to lean on local backers.
- Fuseini acknowledged that scheduling changes aimed at unlocking government support ended up excluding athletes studying in the United States.
- He described a self-reinforcing cycle in which poor funding harms organization, which then deters both top competitors and sponsors.
- He urged the CAA to enforce stronger participation requirements and improve the championship calendar and incentive structure.
- Fuseini also pointed to logistical constraints, including the need to buy athlete tickets through third-party agencies due to limited cash.
Elite absence hits credibility and sponsorship
African athletics is facing what Fuseini branded a credibility crisis, arguing that the continent’s leading performers largely bypassed the sport’s marquee championship. The result, he said, was an event that could not draw international sponsors and laid bare a pattern of underinvestment that threatens the future of athletics across the continent.
Fuseini delivered the warning after the championships finished in Accra, where organizers found it difficult to secure the kind of top-level turnout that typically attracts high-value commercial partners. With the international market proving hard to crack, local sponsorship became the fallback option after international support failed to materialize.
In Fuseini’s assessment, the main driver was the lack of top African athletes. He said the absence of the region’s best competitors directly reduced the event’s ability to generate sponsorship interest from outside the continent.
“We were not able to attract enough of the top African athletes to come for this championship — that is why we were able to get local sponsors but unable to get international support,” he said. “If we had the opportunity to incentivize those top African athletes to come here, we would have used their presence and participation to get international sponsorship.”
Ghana’s calendar shift and the knock-on effect
Fuseini also drew a comparison with football, citing the Africa Cup of Nations as the template athletics must urgently replicate. He said major football tournaments consistently draw top players from across the continent, which helps competitions secure sponsorship deals.
“Anytime there is an Africa Cup of Nations, almost all countries come with their best footballers — that is why CAF always gets sponsorship. If we are not able to do that, we will not get sponsorship.”
Turning to the championship itself, Fuseini explained that Ghana moved the event from July to May in an attempt to secure government funding. However, he said the revised date unintentionally ruled out some African student-athletes who are based in American university systems.
“We have some of our topmost athletes in the US academy system and they were not able to come,” Fuseini acknowledged. “But the program is for Africa, not for Ghana or any other country — that is why we put it in May, so that we would be able to get government support.”
He added that planners had to work around several major global and regional sporting calendars before arriving at the May window, including the FIFA World Cup, the Commonwealth Games, the World Junior Championships and the Youth Olympic Games.
A funding-organising-sponsorship spiral
Fuseini described what he sees as a structural trap damaging African athletics. In his view, insufficient funding leads to weaker organization, which then discourages elite athletes and reduces sponsor interest—worsening the funding gap and keeping the cycle going.
“If we do not get the best athletes to be able to get the money to fix those challenges, these challenges will continue to be there,” he said.
The financial strain also showed up in basic operational decisions. Fuseini said Ghana had to purchase athlete tickets through third-party agencies because of cash constraints, describing it as an embarrassment and suggesting that a newly established national sports fund could prevent such issues in future editions.
“If we had gotten our own money, we would have just gone ahead to buy our own tickets instead of going through an agency.”
Calls for CAA action
Looking ahead, Fuseini urged the Confederation of African Athletics to take specific steps to rebuild the sport’s standing on the continent. He called for mandatory elite participation, better alignment of the championship calendar with global fixtures, introduction of incentives tied to appearances, and construction of long-term commercial sponsorship arrangements.
“Africa has the best athletes in the world, yet our best athletes do not compete in our topmost event in Africa — that is something for the CAA to pick up,” he said.
Event completed; optimism for next year
Despite the problems surrounding participation and funding, Ghana still managed to stage the continental championships. Fuseini credited the successful delivery to resilience rather than resources, while expressing cautious optimism that improvements are possible.
“We will continue to advocate for more funding. Going forward, now that we have a sports fund in Ghana, next year I am praying that things will be better in terms of sports funding.”
The 24th CAA Senior Athletics Championships ended in Accra on May 21, 2026.
Maxwell Kumoye, chairman of the media committee of Athletics Federation of Nigeria (AFN).
