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On the eve of the new Basketball Africa League (BAL) season, the competition’s president, Amadou Gallo Fall, says the continent should not “only export talent.”
The pan-continental club competition, which is entering its third year, tips off in Dakar on 11 March and will repeat last year’s format, with 12 teams split into two regional conferences battling it out to make May’s play-offs in the Rwandan capital, Kigali.
Tunisian champions US Monastir are again likely to be the team to beat, having overcome Angola’s Petro de Luanda 83-72 in 2022’s final to make up for the heartbreak of losing the previous year’s showpiece to inaugural winners Zamalek of Egypt.
With each team only allowed to recruit a maximum of two non-African players for its 12-man roster, the hope is that increased exposure to high-level competition will improve standards across the board when it comes to homegrown talent.
Fall, who helped set up the BAL project, believes the first two editions have already had a tremendous impact on basketball culture in Africa.
“Teams in general are working hard to get organised,” he told BBC Sport Africa.
“To position themselves to have a chance to win their local championship and qualify for the Basketball Africa League.
‘’We believe in basketball in Africa,” he added.
“This is why we’ve been involved here for many decades. We focused on making sure that we lay the foundation, we put in the first basic elements that you need for long-term sustainability.
“That is how to make the game accessible, for you to have more young boys and girls who will be bouncing the ball, getting interested in playing basketball.
