Football - Burkina Faso: insurance of the players, a first step towards progress

Burkina Faso football is progressing, lawns are improving, infrastructure is being modernized but an invisible enemy continues to cut careers without distinction: serious injury without adequate medical coverage.

Indisputable steps forward
Since the reactivation and extension of insurance policies by the Burkina Faso Football Federation (FBF), positive signals have emerged. For the 2025-2026 season, no fewer than 16 clubs in Ligue 1 and 24 in Ligue 2 benefit from federal coverage, protecting 30 players and 5 staff members per team. The national selections (A, A', U15 to U23, men and women) are also ensured.

As proof, in September 2025, Abdoul Karim Baguian, a USFA full back, fractured his left leg during a CAF Confederation Cup match against the Togolese club, AS Gbohloe-Su. Thanks to the insurance policy taken out by his club, care, operation and rehabilitation are fully covered. He hopes to return quickly. 

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A few months earlier, Obécé Ulrich Traoré, a young U17 international, suffered a fracture of his right arm in friendship. There again, the federal insurance also played its support role. These examples show that insurance, when it works, allows quick management of care, hospitalization, surgery, rehabilitation, relieves the clubs financially and restores confidence to the players.

Flaws that persist and that cost a lot
Despite these advances, the picture remains mixed. Many clubs, especially in Ligue 3 or regional leagues, subscribe to minimalist policies sometimes 1,000 CFA francs per player, unsuited to the real risks of football since it would take at least 200,000 to 300,000 CFA francs per team for serious coverage.

Worse, local insurances often exclude care abroad, forcing clubs or families to assume costly medical evacuations. The tragic cases recall the urgency of insurance for footballers in Burkina Faso. Ibrahim Sidibé, former player of the ASFB, knows something about it. In 2016, a concussion during a match against the Union Sportive de Ouagadougou (USO), puts him in a coma for 24 days. He is evacuated to Tunisia thanks to a private manager, without any insurance. Persistent sequelae, contract terminated in 2018, life disrupted. Even today, he is living with the physical and financial consequences, hoping for a reconversion away from the fields.

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Harouna Balboné, a resident of Bouloumpoukou Sport in Ligue 2, also tells about his double fracture in 2022-2023 leading to a premature end of the season, with no care at all.

"If I had been properly insured, I could have healed quickly and come back stronger," 

he confides with bitterness.

Towards a more robust and inclusive system ...
The Burkina Football Federation (FBF), in partnership with insurers and potentially the National Social Security Fund (CNSS), must now shift into higher gear. It is a matter of imposing minimum coverage for all levels including Ligue 3 and young people, training leaders and leagues in procedures, negotiating collective agreements for shared and adapted tariffs, systematically including medical evacuations abroad, mass awareness so that insurance becomes a reflex, not an option.

Insurance is no longer a luxury, but an essential ingredient to preserve careers and honor the passion of Burkinabe for their football. The FBF has shown that it can act; it remains to transform these specific advances into a sustainable and universal system.