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Sports Reporter

THE Zimbabwe Traditional Sports and Games Federation are set to host the second edition of the African Traditional Sports and Games in 2028 after winning the bid.

A fairly new organisation, ZTSGF is affiliated with the African Traditional Sports and Games Confederation (ATSGC) and the International Council of Traditional Sports and Games (ICTSG).

The formal signing of the host protocol agreement between the ATSGC and ZTSGF will take place in Harare today.

The event will showcase a wide range of traditional sports, including animal-aided sports, ball games, batting sports, combat sports, dances, mind games, racket sports, targeting sports, water sports, and more.

ATSGC president, Michael Shamsu Mustapha, who arrived in the country yesterday, said they want to preserve indigenous sports and games.

“When we talk about African traditional sports and games, we are referring to games that are indigenous to the African continent.

“These are games that we used to play as kids in our backyards and colleagues within the same communities etcetera.

“We noticed that in mainstream sports African traditional sports are not a part of it and we want to see how we can promote our games to the point that they become globalised and part of the Olympics structure someday. So that is the bigger goal.

“The bottom line is we want to ensure that these games don’t die out because a lot of people are now into Esports and mobiles and stuff.

“So we want to make sure that we go back and participate and play these games and teach our kids about these games so that they don’t die out.

“So basically we see these games as something that is part of our culture, our heritage and we want to make sure we preserve this heritage and pass it on to the generation,” said Mustapha.

He is accompanied by the executive director of National Sports Authority Sierra Leone, Emmanuel Saffa Abdulai.  The continental body was established in 2018 and Mustapha said they have been working on putting their structures in place and increasing membership.

They have a membership of 42 countries, having started with 30.

Namibia are set to host the first edition of the Continental Games in 2026.

Mustapha said they are recognised by the African Union and UNESCO, which provides most of the support.

“We noticed that for us to have competition for Traditional Games we needed to standardise the rules. So for us to standardise the rules we developed a framework as to how we are going to go about it.

“This framework was standardised by six professors that were hired by UNESCO.

“Early this year we did the validation online and now the document is ready for use by all countries in Africa for them to standardise.

“So now we are looking at each country in Africa to use this document to standardise five traditional games in their country.

“After that, we try to analyse to see which of these games are prominent across the board. The ones that are prominent in more than 20 countries, we use for competition. The ones that are not prominent they will be then for exhibition purposes only,” Mustapha said.

Abdulai said they are here to also assess the facilities.

“Last month we were in Namibia to assess the facilities and ensure that they have sufficient, facilities to host the Games and then we signed the agreement.

“Now we are here to also assess the Zimbabwean facilities and ensure that it’s in place before we sign the agreement for 2028.

“In terms of proper planning, we also have consulted an independent company to begin to work on issues of branding and fundraising because this will involve a lot of resources in the setup.”

ZTSGF president Lizzie Mupure said they are excited.

“We are excited as Zimbabwe Traditional Sports and Games Federation that we won the bid to host in 2028.

“It gives us time to prepare, it gives us four years to prepare for our facilities, our venues and it is also good for us in the sports sector.