Fast-tracking women’s basketball a priority for Fiba Africa

As basketball evolves and grows year by year on the continent, Fiba Africa has made the development of women’s basketball a priority.

The Africa Women’s Basketball League is the top-tier club basketball league for women’s teams on the continent and features only a small number of countries. 

The most recent edition was held in Egypt in 2023 and had club teams from the hosts, Nigeria, Angola, Cameroon, DRC, Benin, Kenya and Rwanda who qualified through tournaments organised in Fiba Africa zones. 

There are few countries which have strong domestic professional women’s basketball, which Fiba Africa president Anibal Aurelio Manave said was holding back their plans of having a similar structure to that of the men’s Basketball Africa League. 

South Africa is among the countries still finding their feet in women’s basketball.

The country launched its first semi-professional women’s basketball league, the WBNL, in 2020 and its standard is inferior to that of other nations. 

“We have a plan to create a league but we need to understand the conditions to create a women’s league are not the same as the men’s. We have countries that are not playing basketball,” Manave said during the launch of the fourth season of BAL on Friday. 

“Those are the things we need to pay attention to in creating this league.

“What we have already done is support the women’s teams which participated in the club championship in Alexandria. 

“We allowed them to bring foreign players because the quality attracts investors and we need more money.

“From a technical aspect we have made it compulsory for women’s teams to at least have professional women’s coaches because in the past we had learners.” 

Manave said it would be key for them to make sure basketball’s infrastructure was up to standard in the basketball nations and teams were paid good salaries.

This they have found challenging in the past. 

“It is something we are working on. We need to provide for the youth and women to play in good facilities.

“Last year in Alexandria [the 2023 Africa Women’s Basketball League] I was impressed.

“We played the final in an arena of a maximum of 2,000 people and playing in such arenas is good for the development of women’s basketball.”

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