The huge turnout of fans at the ongoing Euro 2024 Championship holding in Germany and the Copa America has shown the contrast in game viewership between Europe, the Americas and Africa, where matches are played in near-empty stadiums. In this report, CHRISTIAN OKPARA writes that several factors, including poor economy and difficulty in traveling from one country to another, account for the poor attendance in African championships.
Spectators, they say, are the lifeblood of successful sporting events. The large number of spectators that come to watch sporting events gives life to such championships, pushing the athletes to reach for the skies. Big crowds also attract brands that want to leverage the events to advertise their products and services.
In most developed countries, spectators' engagement is one of the main factors that organisers of big championships take into consideration while planning for such competitions. Thus, apart from ensuring that the events are on television to feed a worldwide audience, the organisers also ensure that fans have things that they will enjoy, as well as, easy access to such competition venues.
At the ongoing Euro 2024 Championship in Germany, the organisers have in place measures that have given fans easy access to the match venues. As at the end of the group stage on June 26, the average attendance at the stadiums stood at 51,000 fans.
These are people who come to cheer their countries, and others who took time off their work/business to enjoy the spectacle in Germany.
The cost of entry tickets ranges from €50 for the cheapest group stage games, and the round of 16 fixtures to €600. The prices for the final, which will be held at Berlin's Olympiastadion, range from €90 to €1,000.
Also at the ongoing Copa America Championship, the average match attendance has been recorded at 55,000 fans, which statistics show is an increase from the previous group stage attendance for Copa Americas held on South American soil.
The increase in attendance is even though the championship is holding in the United States, which is not one of the biggest football countries in the region.
In contrast, attendance at the last Africa Cup of Nations hosted by Cote d'Ivoire ranged from 5,800 (witnessed in the game between Cape Verde and Mozambique) to the competition-high 57,094 fans recorded in the final game between the hosts, Cote d'Ivoire and Nigeria.
Reports show that the final game witnessed such massive attendance because the Ivoirian government mobilised its citizens, some with free tickets, to cheer the Elephants to victory.
According to the attendance figures, some of the spectators in the latter stages of the Africa Cup of Nations in Cote d'Ivoire were foreign tourists, who came to enjoy the game and the different African cultures on display at the AFCON.
Some followers of the game argue that but for the foreign fans and the government intervention, only a few Africans would have been able to afford more than $2000, which some seats on the final day cost the fans.
According to statistics, while there is always a full house at the Euros and Copa America regardless of who is playing, at the AFCON, there was hardly a full house.
The question followers of African sports ask is: “Why do Africans stay away from big international competitions?”
Some analysts point to the difficulty of traveling within Africa, as well as, the poor economies, which have rendered many Africans poor and barely able to take care of their basic needs.
At the last AFCON in Cote d'Ivoire, the average ticket cost was 5,000 FCFA (about N12, 550) for Category 3, 10,000 FCFA (about N24, 100) for Category 2, and 15,000 FCFA (about N36, 650). The prices went up as the competition progressed.
These costs were considered too high for the average African, who lives on less than N100, 000 a month.
The games that witnessed a good crowd were those that featured countries with organised supporters' groups, whose passage to Cote d'Ivoire was subsidised by their governments.
Again, North Africans, who have imbibed the tourism culture, found means of attending games involving their countries because their economies are way better than their West and Central African counterparts.
According to Oma Akatugba, whose business is in traveling across the world to record major sporting and cultural events, one of the problems is that movement between African countries is much more difficult from the immigration and financial point of view.
He also said that another factor that fuels empty seats at stadia is poor marketing of African championships.
“Media Team of the Confederation of African Football (CAF) is doing a terrible job as there are zero awareness or campaigns for major tournaments. CAF needs to partner with tourism companies to make trips for fans smooth.
“One other major problem is that Africans are very broke when it comes to leisure travels because travelling in Africa is expensive and difficult. Europe is borderless, unlike Africa where travelling from one part of the continent to the other is hectic… Isn't that why CAF had to revert to a two-legged final for its Champions League?
“The level of intra-continental integration in the first two continents is higher than what obtains in Africa.”
He summed up the difference in the economic situation of the continent thus: “Imagine paying more than N1 million from Lagos to Abidjan by air for a trip that is one hour, 25 minutes. Then there's a huge gap between the high class, middle class, and the low class.
“There are other socio-economic issues such as limited means of communication between the Anglophone and Francophone countries; a low middle-class population that can afford to travel across countries just to enjoy football, and poor border movements,” Akatugba stated.
A former Super Eagles midfielder, Mutiu Adepoju, agrees with Akatugba, saying that African competitions will continue to witness scanty crowds until the continent finds a way of making access to competition venues easy.
The former Real Sociedad of Spain star added that with so many things to worry about, Africans find it difficult to pay the high cost of travelling to watch competitions outside their countries.
“In Europe, there are connecting flights that can take you to anywhere that you want to go to. If you cannot afford a flight ticket, there are trains linking so many countries that you can ply to arrive at your destination.
“There are also travelling agencies with different packages that you can plan to take to your destination. But that is not the case with Africa,” he said.
Adepoju also said that insecurity plays a part in stopping willing fans from going to watch matches.
Pointing at the just-concluded President Federation Cup between El-Kanemi Warriors and Abia Warriors, in Lagos, Adepoju said a stadium of less than 20,000-seater capacity still had many empty seats because of the inability of the teams' fans to attend the game.
“Not many people in Maiduguri or Umuahia can pay for flights from their states to Lagos to watch a football match because it is very costly. Travelling by road has also become dangerous due to banditry and other hazards associated with it. So, many of these teams' fans prefer to watch the game on television.”
He said the popularity of teams also determines the level of fans that they get in a match, adding a game featuring Brazil or England will attract many fans because of the teams' pedigrees.
“Take the recent match between Enugu Rangers and Enyimba of Aba, as an example. The stadium is a 20,000-capacity venue, but reports alleged that more than 60,000 people cramped into the stadium to watch the game.
That shows that if the teams are popular and the conditions are right, people will come to watch their matches.”
United States-based former junior international, Chibuike Okafor, believes that culture has a lot to do with Africans' choices, saying that a people that are not used to saving for leisure will not understand why they need to take time off their daily chores to relax in a sporting arena.
He said: “I have a friend who takes his family on vacations at least once a year, no matter what every other person is doing around him. It is part of his life.
“At World Cups, Olympics, and other big competitions, westerners leave every other thing to go and see their favourite athletes. Since Lionel Messi arrived in America, a fan group has formed around him for Inter Miami and they follow the team whenever they know that Messi will be featuring in a game.
“Many people in the developed world plan to get away from the daily hassles at least once in a year, and they save money for such vacations, but the world is too much for Africans, as they say. The economy is too poor, there are no good roads, power is epileptic, and even healthcare is a problem. People worry so much that they don't have time to relax and reinvent themselves.”
Okafor continued: “Tell me, how many tourism companies do you see around you? In America, there are so many of them advertising different packages, with a good payment structure that no matter how lowly placed you are, you can see one that suits your pocket.”
He said that many Africans only take advantage of sporting events to travel to Europe or the Americas when they see the opportunity to migrate to such countries and not because they want to watch the games.
“There were stories that many Nigerians were stranded in Russia at the last World Cup in 2018 because they thought that the country would give them the opportunity for a better life in Europe, but before they realised that living in Russia was a different thing entirely, it was too late.
“We need good governments in Africa that will make moving from one country to another easy and also bring the people together.
“There is so much hatred in Africa. That is why we have xenophobia in South Africa…and even some West Africans hate Nigerians. So, they make things difficult for their fellow blacks visiting their countries.”
Another Former Super Eagles midfielder, Emeka Ezeugo, said that the problem has to do with African football's lack of identity, pointing out that the lack of football idols is affecting fans' support for the game.
According to Ezeugo, many players in Europe and South America draw fans to the stadiums. “These are players fans want to go and watch in action. It doesn't matter your nationality; some fans look out for some players because these guys play for teams that they support.
“In Africa, people go to watch street or roadside football played by children. They follow these children as they mature in the game and start their professional careers.
“So, when they come to play for their countries, they have an army of fans who want to watch them him in action. But these days, some of the national team players are strangers to the people. They grew up overseas and are brought to play for the national team by lazy administrators, who have failed to develop African football. This type of players don't attract fans to the games,” he said.
Ezeugo explained that when a fan grows up with a particular set of players, he follows their games because he has a connection to them. “Unfortunately, the current crop of African players does not attract good followership. I am not talking about North Africans and South Africans because they have a system that develops iconic players that their fans can associate with.
“That is why North African stadiums are always filled to the brim during games. A Nations Cup in either North Africa or South Africa cannot suffer the type of fan apathy we witnessed in Cote d'Ivoire.”
