Next year African cities will host a circuit of lucrative athletics meetings on a par with the TDK Golden League League in Europe, the President of the African Athletic Confederation (AAC) in Nairobi, Kenya, today.
Cameroon's Ahmed Malboum Kalkaba told a news conference that the meetings would take place in Dakar, Nairobi, Johannesburg, Abuja and Rabat.
"The AAC Permit Meeting in Nairobi on May 7 is the first step to staging a big meeting here in Kenya," said Malboum. "From next year, it will be upgraded to the level of the European Golden League meetings."
"Africa has the best athletes and it makes little sense that they don't run in the continent," he said. "This is why we have organised five major meetings to attract Olympic and World champions.”
"We have signed a contract with a French television channel and a major multinational to promote athletics in Africa because we realise we must organise the sport professionally to attract big stars and offer big money.”
"Africa has the resources to organise big competitions. Africa has champions to make such competitions exciting but because the sport is not run professionally here to attract big sponsors and big prizes, our runners prefer competing in the
west."
Reuters