Loading player
On Sunday evening, Ivory Coast won the Africa Cup of Nations, the main men’s football tournament for African national teams, beating Nigeria 2-1 in the final. Ivory Coast was also the country hosting the competition. This edition of the tournament went particularly well, from all points of view, so much so that in recent days professionals, newspapers and experts have begun to ask themselves whether it was the best African Cup ever, both from the sporting and commercial.
In a recent press conference Patrice Motsepe, the president of the African Football Confederation, said that in this month’s tournament around 2 billion people around the world watched the Africa Cup of Nations: it is not clear how this data should be taken and what that encompasses, but it’s quite symptomatic of the enthusiasm that there has been across the continent about how this tournament went.
According to several analysts, in any case, it is very likely that this edition of the Africa Cup of Nations has had the greatest media exposure ever: contracts have been signed to broadcast the matches in 180 countries and on the most important sports channels in the world, such as the international Sky Sports and beIN Sports, the French Canal+ and the British BBC, as well as the South African MultiChoice and dozens of other non-pay channels. But in addition to television, social networks contributed enormously to the circulation of content regarding the Africa Cup of Nations and its matches. Around 6 thousand journalists from all over the world were accredited to watch the competition live.
Ivory Coast fans (AP Photo/Sunday Alamba)
Even before it began there was the impression that this edition could go particularly well, above all for sporting reasons: never before have some of the best players in the world in their role participated in the Africa Cup of Nations like this year, such as the Egyptian Mohamed Salah, the Nigerian Victor Osimhen, the Senegalese Sadio Mané or the Cameroonian André Onana (who is also a goalkeeper, a role in which African football has less frequent players of the highest level).
Furthermore, the competition was expected to be very balanced from the start, as it turned out to be: there was no clear favorite national team and the level was high and homogeneous, with several smaller national teams capable of putting the bigger ones in difficulty and with a greatest football tradition. Many big teams were surprisingly eliminated, fueling interest in teams that are usually less followed. Among the biggest surprises was the national team from Cape Verde, an archipelago of 600 thousand inhabitants, which reached the quarter-finals and was only eliminated on penalties by South Africa. But also the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which without particularly well-known players reached the semi-final, then losing to the Ivory Coast.
Democratic Republic of Congo players celebrate after a goal (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe)
In general there were many spectacular matches, with many goals and with endings in the balance, the ones that the public likes the most. Even on a statistical level, these impressions were confirmed: the company that collects data on football Opta defined it as “the most exciting African Cup ever”. In the group stage, for example, the average goals per match was 2.47, the highest in the last 15 years.
– Read also: Cape Verde!
It is common opinion that the African Confederation has done a good job in selling the product, and that after this edition it will have even greater bargaining capacity to increase its revenues. This edition had 17 official commercial sponsors, including multinationals such as TotalEnergies, Orange and Unilever. Côte d’Ivoire was also highly praised for its efficient organisation: it invested heavily and had a clear return in terms of tourism, credibility and economic revenue. The presence of the public in the stadiums was very high in all the matches.
The Africa Cup of Nations has existed since 1957 and is usually played every two years in odd-numbered years (this edition is in fact that of 2023, postponed due to the inhospitable climate in Ivory Coast last summer). At an international level it has always had a smaller following than other continental competitions, such as the European Championships or the America’s Cup: this is still the case, but in the meantime the interest in it has grown significantly in recent years and this year it had a peak quite obvious.
2024-02-11 17:35:21
#African #Cup
