Rugby Afrique – Herbert Mensah: "African rugby must respect itself"

"I have spent my life running businesses in Africa and elsewhere, and I can tell you that if there is one thing that drives any business, it is money." Those are the words of Herbert Mensah. The president of the Ghana Rugby Union is standing for the presidency of Rugby Afrique. After two terms under Tunisia's Khaled Babou, who is leaving his seat vacant, the Ghanaian will face Uganda's Andrew Owor. He presents himself as the candidate for change, the man who will finally allow the sport to build its own ecosystem so that it can truly develop.

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World Rugby in the firing line

"We cannot go on living as if African sport were a charity case in need of help. African rugby must respect itself and behave like a leading player if it wants to be respected by the rest of the world," he says. "African sports have been forgotten by the world. Worse, it seems African sports have been forgotten by Africans themselves. In the rugby world in particular, some countries have not had active leagues for more than three years!" Herbert Mensah's assessment is damning. In his view, while the game is in fairly good health globally, World Rugby's level of investment in African rugby is one of the main problems.

Last year, the world governing body invested 2 million dollars across the whole of African rugby. For the candidate for the Rugby Afrique presidency, that is a paltry sum. "It is a ridiculously small amount for an entire continent, and particularly telling of the way the organisation underestimates the African continent," he laments, before adding: "We have proof of that when this same organisation is prepared to grant 5 or 6 million dollars a year to a single member country of Rugby Europe and leaves African rugby with only crumbs to promote the sport among a population of more than 1.2 billion people. This factual example illustrates how little respect the world shows African rugby, and we must inevitably ask ourselves whether that respect should not come first from us, Africans."

Côte d'Ivoire and DR Congo will vote for him

To try to lift African rugby out of this situation, Herbert Mensah intends to build a genuine economy around African rugby, without necessarily waiting for aid that he considers insufficient. That means better governance and an end to certain practices that he believes are holding back the sport's development. "We must improve our governance results at every level, recruit better administrators who will move the sector forward and raise capital so that they can do their jobs properly," he explains. "That means starting by changing the way we do things, by implementing global standards – rather than African ones – for our activities. Sporting competitions are not just about entertainment and physical feats. This is a multi-billion-dollar industry that generates advertising revenue and tourism flows, and contributes to infrastructure development and investment in a wide range of different economic sectors."

The businessman, who is also chair of Rugby Afrique's finance committee, strikes a different note from his rival for the presidency, who is more closely aligned with the outgoing board of the governing body. If he were elected, his approach would signal, if not a complete break with the past, a change of tone in relations between African and world rugby. It is a message that is gaining traction and appeals to some African federations. The latest to declare their backing for his presidential bid are Côte d'Ivoire and DR Congo.