The Senegal-based African Union of Broadcasting (AUB), which comprises over 50 active member organisations, has entered into a partnership with FIFA to help create a sustainable programme of assistance for Africa’s broadcast community.
Says FIFA TV director Niclas Ericsson: “In 2004 we were contacted by the AUB to see if we could start a new working relationship regarding the continent’s sports broadcasting industry. Since then FIFA has signed more than 30 agreements – and we expect to sign more in the near future – that will help Africa’s sports industry.”
According to Ericsson, FIFA will empower sub-Saharan Africa’s broadcasters to make money to become sustainable, and improve their standards by providing platforms for advice and training in match productions.
As part of FIFA’s ‘Win in Africa with Africa’ initiative, the FIFA Legacy Week focuses primarily – through the reinvestment of broadcast rights and revenues into the development and promotion of football in Africa – at transferring knowledge and building capacity in a manner that is relevant to the respective country in the region. At the end of the first phase, some 3,000 African TV and radio professionals from 41 countries will have been trained in international broadcast standards.
Each course is designed to accommodate up to 100 participants, and encompasses three key modules, namely TV and radio journalism for football, TV and radio production for football, and TV and radio sports rights and marketing.
France-based Host Broadcast Services (HBS) is providing instructors, teaching materials and demonstration equipment for conducting skill-building courses in football production, such as training of commentators, cameramen, video-operators, directors and producers.
Likewise, the AUB is conducting seminars, workshops and conferences on topics such as news, educational broadcasting and TV development of communications, satellite communications and training.
The FIFA Legacy Week is open to eligible professionals from Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Cabo Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo-Brazzaville, Cote d’Ivoire, DRC, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea-Conakry, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Rwanda, Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Swaziland, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Zambia, Zanzibar and Zimbabwe.
For this World Cup FIFA is, for the first time, providing the AUB with its proper production centre and studio at the International Broadcast Centre right here in Johannesburg. The IBC-based AUB studio is set to produce two shows, one in English and one in French, during the World Cup.
For more information, e-mail Francis Tellier of HBS at ftellier@hbs.tv.
