TikTok and the Confederation of African Football (CAF) have announced a first-of-its-kind partnership that will bring live screamed football content to fans, both on the continent and across the globe.
The deal marks TikTok’s first major brand partnership in Africa and supports the continent’s most popular sport. Through this year-long sponsorship, TikTok will be supporting the TotalEnergies Africa Cup of Nations, Africa’s biggest sporting event, which kicked off on Saturday 9 January 2022 in Cameroon.
TikTok will also be a part of the action for the TotalEnergies CAF Champions League 2022 and the TotalEnergies CAF Women’s Africa Cup of Nations 2022 in Morocco.
“We are truly delighted to have TikTok come on board as an official partner. Football content in Africa is in high demand and together with TikTok we are able to create and encourage the online community to engage in and create the type of content that will take both brands to new markets,” said Veron Mosengo-Omba, General Secretary, CAF.
According to Mosengo-Omba, the partnership recognises CAF not just as a football body but her position as the single-biggest football entertainment producer in Africa, giving fans everywhere, world-class football experiences throughout the year. “We look forward to working with TikTok in creating true African football experiences for fans around the world”.
The collaboration between TikTok and CAF will allow fans to celebrate the tournaments’ unforgettable moments together. With everything from pre and post-match content and highlights, to football-related challenges; TikTok will become a home for the spirit and passion of these iconic sporting events.
Read also: Omicron: European football league on red alert, 2021 AFCON in doubt
TikTok will be offering its community new ways of creating and engaging with African football, with cool in-app effects, a special hub for tournaments as well as cool features and filters for the football community to enjoy.
Boniswa Sidwaba, TikTok content operations manager for Africa, said the partnership comes as TikTok cements its position as the perfect platform for football fandom and culture across both men’s and women’s games, with the #football and #Soccer hashtags racking up an incredible 273 billion and 108 billion views to-date, respectively.
Accordingly, Sidwaba posits that on the continent, #AfricanFootball with over 48.3 million views is proof that Africans continue to love football content on the platform, while creating great review content and participating in fun-filled challenges.
“Fans on the African continent have not been able to come together to enjoy the beautiful game of football due to COVID-19 regulations. For us, this is also an opportunity to bring African football fans around the world together again, online, starting with the much anticipated TotalEnergies Africa Cup of Nations.
“As a proudly multicultural continent, Africa is beaming with creativity and talent. We see a lot of potential to harness and cultivate creative football expression on our platform. We certainly look forward to inspiring fans to celebrate and participate in content unique to TikTok, in the most African way possible, providing great entertainment for the community,” said Sidwaba.
Earlier this year, the fast growth of sporting talent, fan communities, creative sports trends and commentary on the platform led to TikTok becoming the first digital entertainment platform to sponsor a major international tournament for UEFA with EURO 2020. With over 1.4 million followers on TikTok, the official CAF TikTok account has also fast become Africa’s footballing go-to fandom & with tournaments such as AFCON making a return on the continent, we can expect to see continued growth and love for the sport on the platform.
Join BusinessDay whatsapp Channel, to stay up to date
Open In Whatsapp
