Why Weak Legal Structures Are Costing African Sports Millions in Commercial Revenue

In January 2026, the Confederation of African Football (CAF) announced that the TotalEnergies Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) Morocco 2025 had recorded its most commercially successful outing yet. Revenues reportedly increased by about 90 per cent compared to previous editions, driven largely by improved broadcast deals. The
tournament secured over 20 broadcasting partnerships across more than 30 European countries, including a landmark deal with Channel 4 in the United Kingdom and a highlights agreement with Netflix. Total revenue stood at roughly US$192.6 million, up from about US$79.7 million in the 2021–2022 cycle. However, once the numbers are placed side by side with global benchmarks, a different picture emerges. The UEFA Champions League alone generates around US$3.9 billion every year. AFCON’s entire revenue still accounts for less than five per cent of what Europe’s biggest club competition earns annually. This gap cannot be blamed on lack of talent or audience interest—AFCON 2024 reportedly attracted more than 1.4 billion Television viewers worldwide. The real problem lies in weak legal infrastructure, poor governance, and inconsistent enforcement of existing regulations that allow corruption to thrive and commercial opportunities to evaporate.

Broadcast Rights: Where Things Usually Go Wrong

A good example is CAF’s now-collapsed deal with Lagardère Sports. In 2015, CAF signed a 12-year broadcasting and marketing agreement reportedly worth about US$1 billion. 6 Four years later, the deal was cancelled by an Egyptian court for breaching competition law. The problem was not just that the deal collapsed—the bigger issue
was what it revealed: poor contract structuring, weak compliance checks, and a governance framework that could not withstand legal scrutiny.

To be fair, CAF appears to have learnt from that experience. Between 2022 and 2025, the confederation introduced more transparent bidding processes and improved its legal and commercial oversight. The result was a reported revenue increase of over 140 per cent within three years. That improvement alone shows that when legal structures are strengthened, money follows. By contrast, European football provides a useful benchmark for how structured legal frameworks protect commercial value.

UEFA’s centralised broadcasting model ensures that media rights are negotiated transparently, revenue is distributed according to clear rules, and contracts are insulated from political interference. The English Premier League’s broadcast arrangements, for example, rely on strict licensing requirements, independent oversight, and predictable enforcement—features that give broadcasters and investors confidence in long-term commercial stability. Africa does not need to replicate Europe’s financial scale, but it can adapt these governance principles to its own institutional realities.

Solidarity Payments: Money That Rarely Comes Home

Under FIFA regulations, five per cent of every international transfer fee is meant to be shared among clubs that trained the player between the ages of 12 and 23. In practice, many African clubs never see the money. FIFA compliance reports suggest that a significant number of solidarity payments worldwide remain unpaid, and African
clubs are among the most affected. Across many African countries, player registration systems are poorly organised. Records are incomplete, documentation is informal, and in some cases, entirely paper-based. Nigeria’s Draft National Sports Industry Policy (2020) openly acknowledged gaps in regulatory mechanisms supporting athlete development, including player documentation. Without proper legal documentation and harmonised registration systems, African clubs will continue losing revenue they are legally entitled to. In contrast, jurisdictions with digitised registration systems and specialised dispute mechanisms—such as those used by many European federations—are better positioned to enforce these payments efficiently.

Governance Structures: The Root of the Problem

The problems go deeper than individual failed deals. A 2025 study on Nigerian sports governance identified five systemic challenges: legal fragmentation, political interference, policy incoherence, stakeholder exclusion, and lack of accountability. Political appointments remain common across African sports institutions, often prioritising loyalty over competence. This undermines long-term planning and professional management. These governance failures make the sector look risky to investors, broadcasters, and sponsors—raising transaction costs and making long-term planning difficult.

That said, some African countries are already showing the way forward; Rwanda offers a useful African example. Through targeted governance and compliance reforms, including federation-led workshops aimed at strengthening legal and administrative standards, Rwanda has taken steps toward reducing political interference and improving regulatory discipline in sport.

What Needs to Change

AFCON 2025 demonstrated that reform delivers results. When CAF improved transparency and strengthened its legal frameworks, commercial revenue increased significantly. However, sustaining this growth requires deliberate and time-bound reforms.

First, within the next two to three years, CAF, working in collaboration with the African Union Sports Council, should develop a binding continental Sports Governance Framework that sets minimum standards fortrans parency, commercial contracts, and dispute resolution across member associations. Existing continental bodies already provide a foundation, but their mandates must move beyond just policy to enforceable
governance standards. Second, national federations should establish or strengthen independent regulatory bodies, separated from political interference, to oversee financial transparency and governance compliance. This reform is critical to restoring investor confidence. Third, over the next three years, African football associations must digitise player registration systems and provide them with legal backing at both national and continental levels, drawing lessons from systems such as South Africa’s MYSAFA platform. Finally, sports-specific arbitration mechanisms should be expanded or created to ensure faster and more specialised dispute resolution.

In an increasingly competitive global sports market, failure to act will mean Africa continues exporting talent without retaining value.

Conclusion

African football is not short of talent, fans, or global relevance. What it lacks are the legal and governance structures required to convert that interest into sustainable commercial value. Weak broadcast contracts, unpaid solidarity payments, and governance instability continue to drain millions of dollars from the continent every
year.

If reforms are delayed, African sport risks losing another generation of talent and further eroding investor confidence. But with coherent legal frameworks, transparent governance, and credible enforcement mechanisms, African football can become one of the most commercially powerful sports markets globally.

The opportunity already exists. The task ahead is fixing the structures that keep letting the money slip through the cracks.

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The article was written by Edith Owolabi, BOS Intern writer.