Being the president of Rugby Africa, I’ve asked for a mindset change

BY HERBERT MENSAH

ACCRA, Ghana – As 2025 comes to an end, and following the successful hosting of major rugby tournaments across the continent, Rugby Africa president Herbert Mensah has reflected on what has been a fruitful year for the game under his stewardship.

Below is the text version of a recorded speech delivered by Mensah:

My mantra, since I became president, before I became president, is that sport is big business.

For those who have worked with me over the last 20 years will understand. From my time in football, with one of the greatest teams in Africa, Kumasi Asante Kotoko. It’s all about bringing investment into the game.

But for a continent where we do things more as fun instead of a business, it’s been difficult. Being the president of Rugby Africa, I’ve asked for a mindset change. A mindset change that can provide a great opportunity for everybody. We’ve changed the way that our tournaments are run.

Everybody saw the extraordinary tournament that Godwin (Kayangwe; Uganda Rugby Union president) helped put together in Uganda (the 2025 Rugby Africa Cup that also served as the 2027 Men’s Rugby World Cup qualifiers). What we also saw in Ghana (during the 2024 Africa Women’s Sevens in Accra) and we need to thank those that are in charge here in Ghana, for helping put that together. As well as Morocco (during Africa’s Repechage tournament in February) and other countries because since coming into office it has been clear to me that the only way we are going to get more rugby, at a higher level, for everybody, is by sacrifices being made.

The countries I’ve mentioned have hosted without Rugby Africa having to invest money in the tournaments. World Rugby, which has given us a very limited budget, we do not have to go back to them to say, how do we expand, how do we created an opportunity for more games to play? Where it is that we have it that we have 16 teams playing in the men’s Fifteens, that would not have been possible without the investments made by those countries that have agreed to sponsor the game.

The women’s ladies Sevens in Nairobi (in October) was another example. Ghana set the way last year with a 12-team tournament – our budget was for eight teams. By getting a president like Harriet (Achieng Okach, Kenya Rugby Union chairperson), and her team, led by herself, and then the Chief Executive Thomas (Odundo) and Moses (Ndale) my good friend, the vice-president and the rest of the board, to get involved, they’ve been able to sort out the structure in such a way that we had another 12-team tournament.

Rugby Africa is only going to grow if it is that we have more of the Godwins, and now the Harriets, Hicham (Oubajja) in Morocco, the other presidents who can see that link between themselves and governments, themselves and sponsors, are such that we can guarantee greater sponsorship in the game. I’ve just come from a CNN event of which I was a delegate, I wasn’t a panelist. But I used the opportunity to network and my discussion with (financial services firm) Mukuru for example and how they could get involved in regional rugby events, meeting the Minister responsible in Nigeria and listening to how we could get other such people who could get involved in the sponsorship of the game.

Really there is an understanding that if Africa is not to be left behind and if it is to grow, the business of sports needs to be better understood. Serving on the EB (Executive Board) of World Rugby, we call it learning how to fish, we need to learn. But I think we are ahead of the game, we started even before that and with the new strategic plan of World Rugby. Rugby Africa is now going to be restructuring its own strategic plan. The business of sports means that we do need great investment, we do need the opportunity to be able to see these wonderful match-ups that occur on our continent because Africa after all has the greatest athletes.

In the men’s Fifteens game, we are the double world champions. The women’s Fifteens, look at what South Africa achieved this year, from nothing to beating great nations in order to reach where they reached (the Women’s World Cup quarter-finals). So we need to do the right thing to create competition pathways and modes that are different, based on different hosting models, and it has started for us, two years ago, but certainly now the momentum is picking.

That is why we are in Nairobi. I say thank you Harriet, thanks to you and your team: Thomas. Moses, the rest of the board. To all the other countries, Godwin has led the way in Uganda, we’ve seen what is happening in Ghana and I say Morocco and Tunisia chipped in, and the other countries I’ve said. And my dear friend and board member Kevin Venkiah is taking the Sevens for the next couple of years. They are picking up the full hosting costs. This releases additional funds for us to invest in regional tournaments to help the smaller nations, those who are organised and have settled out internal issues and satisfied all the criteria of good governments in terms of moving forward.

I make this speech because it is every so often important for people to recognise that we do not have a right to World Rugby funds, we do not have a right to people automatically giving us money. And we are not a political sport. We are not football and I come from the world of football where it’s automatic that governments invest.

I come from a different world right now, which is the beautiful game of rugby, and we can only succeed if we have these investments that ensures that the mantra that sports is big business continues to its logical conclusion. Which is all 40 states which are members of Rugby Africa, the 20 or so which are full members of World Rugby, get a chance to play rugby every year at the highest level.

*Ghanaian entrepreneur Mensah is the president of continental body Rugby Africa and former chairman of Asante Kotoko, the two-time African Champions League winners.