Unlocking Africa’s Sports Economy: Infrastructure, Investment And Industrialization

Africa’s sports industry holds enormous economic potential, yet a lack of sustainable infrastructure continues to limit its growth. In this interview, Paulo J. Cruz, Founding CEO of African Collaborations Group (ACG), a new African-led platform originating investable sport and entertainment infrastructure across the continent, discusses how integrated sports and entertainment developments can transform the continent’s sports economy. Drawing on nearly three decades of experience in infrastructure and real estate, including senior leadership roles at DAMAC Group and LandAfrique, he shares his vision for turning sports facilities into sustainable economic hubs that attract investment, create jobs and drive long-term growth.

1. You have worked across infrastructure, real estate, and development for decades. Why do you believe sport is now an untapped engine for Africa’s industrialisation and economic growth?

Two things converged. The first is a market reality: Africa has 1.5 billion people and the youngest population in the world, yet there is virtually no infrastructure designed to capture the economic value of sport. The demand is enormous. The supply does not exist.

The second is a model failure. Africa has invested billions in standalone, football-only stadiums that on average are used fewer than 25 days a year. They drain public budgets instead of generating revenue. That model has failed.

When Nicolas Pompigne-Mognard, ACG’s Founder, approached me, he shared his conviction that the industrialisation of sport in Africa will simply never materialise without the right infrastructure to enable it. Not more stadiums. Integrated sport and entertainment districts that generate their own revenue, sustain their own operations, and create the ecosystem in which a sport economy can actually function. The industrialisation of sport in Africa cannot happen without the right infrastructure. That is what ACG originates.

2. You describe infrastructure as the prerequisite for sport industrialisation. What is Africa’s biggest infrastructure gap today?

Every revenue stream in the sport economy depends on physical infrastructure. If a federation has no venue that meets international standards, it cannot host competitions. If an athlete has no facility to train in, there is no progression. If a broadcaster has no facility, content does not get produced. If a concert promoter has no arena, the show goes to another continent. Without the physical infrastructure, none of it happens.

Africa’s biggest gap is not stadiums. Africa has stadiums. What it does not have is sport infrastructure that works as an economic asset. The gap is the absence of integrated sport and entertainment districts: masterplanned, mixed-use ecosystems that combine stadiums, indoor arenas, aquatics centres, training academies, hotels, conference centres, retail, entertainment, residential, and commercial space within a single development, designed to generate diversified revenue year-round.

3. What makes a sport and entertainment district commercially sustainable beyond matchdays?

Diversification. No single asset carries the district. Revenue comes from 15 to 20 different asset types operating simultaneously. Certified stadiums and arenas host competitions, concerts, and events. Training academies generate programme fees. Hotels serve visitors year-round. Conference centres attract business events. Retail serves daily foot traffic. Restaurants and entertainment venues draw evening and weekend audiences. Media production facilities license content. Naming rights and sponsorship generate commercial revenue across the district.

When there is no conference, there is a concert. When the stadium is quiet, the hotels, training academies, restaurants, and commercial tenants are operating. Revenue flows every day from multiple sources. That diversification is what makes the model financially self-sustaining.

4. What makes a large-scale sports project genuinely bankable and investable?

Three things. First, a diversified revenue model. A project that depends on a single income source is not investable. Second, professional operations. A district without a credible operator is a construction project, not an investment. Third, institutional-grade origination. The feasibility study, the masterplan, the financial model, and the risk allocation must meet the standards that institutional investors and finance institutions require.

Most African sport infrastructure projects fail at the origination stage. The ambition exists. The government mandate exists. But the rigorous process that transforms a concept into something an investor can finance has been missing. That pre-development phase, the feasibility, structuring, and institutional groundwork, is where ACG invests.

We have also assembled an independent Research & Impact Advisory Panel of scholars from institutions including Smith College, Texas A&M University, Princeton University, and Loughborough University, who independently review every feasibility study before it reaches investors. That level of academic scrutiny provides a layer of unparalleled validation and risk-mitigation that institutional investors can rely on.

5. How can governments, finance institutions and private investors better align around major sports projects?

They cannot align until someone creates the project they are aligning around. That is the structural problem. A financial institution finances projects; it does not originate them. A government sets the mandate and provides the enabling environment; it does not typically have the technical capacity to structure a bankable project. A lead advisor produces feasibility studies when commissioned; it does not initiate the process. Everyone is waiting for a project to arrive in a form they can work with. The origination layer has been missing.

Once a properly originated project exists, alignment follows a clear logic. The government provides the PPP concession, land, regulatory support, and enabling environment. It does not borrow and it does not guarantee the debt. Private and institutional capital funds the project through project finance structures where the district’s own revenue streams service the debt.

That said, the challenges are real. PPP frameworks vary significantly across African jurisdictions, and land tenure can be complex. Currency risk, political risk, and regulatory uncertainty all affect investor appetite. These are not reasons not to proceed; they are reasons why the origination process must be rigorous. A feasibility study that does not address these risks honestly is not worth the paper it is written on.

6. Beyond stadiums and events, how can these districts create lasting jobs, talent and wider economic opportunities?

The permanent jobs come from operations: hotel staff, restaurant workers, retail employees, facility managers, event coordinators, sports coaches, physiotherapists, broadcast technicians, media producers, conference organisers, and commercial office tenants who employ their own teams. These are not temporary construction jobs. They are permanent positions in a permanent urban economy.

Beyond direct employment, there is the talent development pathway. A district that includes training academies and sports science facilities gives a young African athlete the difference between training on a dirt pitch and training in a professional environment. For a young person who is not an athlete, the district offers career pathways in hospitality, event management, sports marketing, broadcast production, and facility management, professions that barely exist as career options in most African cities today because the infrastructure to support them does not exist.

The macroeconomic context supports the opportunity. The World Bank’s October 2026 Africa Economic Update projects Sub-Saharan Africa’s growth at 4.3%, upgraded for nearly three-quarters of countries in the region (source: World Bank Africa Economic Update, 6 October 2026). According to the UN Tourism World Tourism Barometer (September 2026), Africa recorded 4% growth in international tourist arrivals in the first half of 2026, against a global average of 0.4%, making it the strongest-performing region in the world. The demand is measurable, it is growing, and it is unserved. What has been missing is the infrastructure to capture it.

The challenge, however, is ensuring these benefits reach local communities. Affordability, local procurement, skills transfer, and genuine community engagement must be embedded in the design from the start, not added as an afterthought. That is why our Research Panel includes scholars who specialise in community impact, environmental justice, and development outcomes in African contexts.

7. What would success for ACG look like in five to ten years, and how could its model change Africa’s sports economy?

Success means the infrastructure exists on which the industrialisation of sport in Africa can finally stand. Not more football-only stadiums that sit empty 340 days a year. Integrated sport and entertainment districts that operate 365.

For the model to have truly worked, three things would need to have changed. First, no African government should build a standalone stadium with public money and no revenue model. The integrated district should be the standard, not the exception. Second, investors should be actively competing to finance sport districts in Africa, because the track record proves they are bankable. Third, young Africans should have career pathways in sport, entertainment, hospitality, and media that did not exist before the districts were built.

If, in ten years, an African city has a district where a young person can train as an athlete in the morning, have lunch at a restaurant, study in the afternoon, attend a world-class concert in the evening and walk into a nightclub afterwards, then come back the next day for a cinema and shopping, all within the same district, and that district is paying for itself, then the model has worked. That is what the ACG team is here to build.

SOURCES

World Bank Africa Economic Update, October 2026: Sub-Saharan Africa growth forecast raised to 4.3%. Published 6 October 2026. https://www.worldbank.org/en/region/afr

UN Tourism World Tourism Barometer, September 2026: Africa recorded 4% growth in international tourist arrivals in H1 2026, against a global average of 0.4%. Published September 2026. https://www.untourism.int/

Stadium utilisation: based on publicly available data on African stadium scheduling. Most African stadiums host domestic league matches (approximately 15-20 home games per season), occasional international fixtures (2-4 per year), and a small number of non-sporting events. Total utilisation rarely exceeds 25 days per year for football-only venues without diversified programming.