Football can provide solution to youth unemployment in Africa: CAF president

Gaborone, Botswana | Xinhua | African countries have been urged to treat football as a business since it has got the potential of solving unemployment amongst the youths, a continental football leader said Monday.

Due to the importance of football and the young people of Africa, there is need to interact with them, Patrice Motsepe, the president of Confederations of African Football (CAF) told journalists on sidelines of ongoing Forbes Under-30 Summit in Gaborone, Botswana’s capital.

According to United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Africa is a young continent with almost 60 percent of its population, estimated at 1.3 billion, under the age of 25 years and this has been projected to nearly double in size by 2050.

“Africa has 300 million young people between the ages of 15 and 25 years. We have to interact with them through various means,” Motsepe said.

Matsepe said football is not about the “wonderful sports we love on the soccer pitch” but the business and economic development, investments as well as partnerships.

“If you look at the most successful football nations, it turns to be the football nations that have got growing economies, private sector growing and doing well in investing in infrastructure,” he said.

Botswana has entered into a bidding process with Namibia to co-host the 36th Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) finals on a 60:40 formula with the later bearing the 40 percent and associated benefits.

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Xinhua