An African Olympic Games on the cards?

The 2024 Olympic Games in Paris are just three months away, but staging the world's biggest sporting event is a privilege Africa has never been afforded. That could be set to change, with Egypt preparing to table a proposal to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) for the 2036 Games. Construction on potential venues is well under way – and some have already been completed. ‘We can't claim the IOC and the Olympic Games to be universal without hosting a Games on the African continent,’ Dr Kamilla Swart-Arries, an expert in sport, tourism, and events management, told BBC News. Africa has previously hosted mega sporting events, including the 1995 Rugby World Cup and 2010 Fifa World Cup in South Africa, while Morocco will co-host football's biggest tournament in 2030. Dakar in Senegal is preparing for the 2026 Youth Olympic Games, but the sheer scale and cost of hosting the Olympics presents the main challenge for any African bid to overcome.

According to Sharif El Erian, the secretary general of Egypt's National Olympic Committee (NOC), there are ‘very few countries in Africa’ which have the capability to host the Games. ‘They were totally right not to come to Africa before,’ he told BBC News. He said apart from Egypt, South Africa and Morocco ‘the rest have no chance’. Egypt's NOC gained approval to bid from President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi back in September 2022 so, in short, the North African country needs to convince the IOC's executive board. Yet, amid competition, it may not prove straightforward. ‘It's a dialogue process. The process for bidding has changed a lot,’ Dr Swart-Arries, an associate professor at the Hamad Bin Khalifa University in Qatar, added.

 

 

Full analysis on the BBC News site