The Confederation of African Football (CAF) has signed a first-of-its-kind partnership with the video creation platform, TikTok. Following this partnership, TikTok has been labelled as the official sponsor of the upcoming AFCON tournament and will also play a part in other upcoming CAF-organized tournaments.
This year-long partnership marks TikTok’s first-ever major brand collaboration in Africa. The video-focused platform will be providing pre and post-match content and highlights of the upcoming AFCON tournament, CAF Champions League 2022, and CAF Women’s AFCON 2022.
Adding to it, TikTok will also be introducing football-related challenges and provide the fans with a chance to meet the top African players to engage more audience towards the platform and African football. The video-based social networking site will provide new and unique ways of creating and engaging with African football by introducing cool in-app effects, a special hub for tournaments, and adding new features and filters.
Speaking on the occasion, Boniswa Sidwaba, TikTok Content Operations Manager for Africa, said: “Fans on the African continent have not been able to come together to enjoy the beautiful game of football due to COVID-19 regulations. For us, this is also an opportunity to bring African football fans around the world together again, online, starting with the much anticipated TotalEnergies Africa Cup of Nations.”
He added, “As a proudly multicultural continent, Africa is beaming with creativity and talent. We see a lot of potential to harness and cultivate creative football expression on our platform. We certainly look forward to inspiring fans to celebrate and participate in content unique to TikTok, in the most African way possible, providing great entertainment for the community.”
CAF General Secretary, Mr Veron Mosengo-Omba, commented: “We are truly delighted to have TikTok come on board as an official partner. Football content in Africa is in high demand and together with TikTok we are able to create and encourage the online community to engage in and create the type of content that will take both brands to new markets. We look forward to working with TikTok in creating true African football experiences for fans around the world. This partnership recognises CAF not just as a football body but our position as the single-biggest football entertainment producers in Africa, giving fans everywhere, world-class football experiences throughout the year.”
This is not TikTok’s first football sponsorship deal as earlier it had joined hands with the UEFA for Euro 2020. As part of the partnership, the UEFA launched its official TikTok account and engaged with over two million viewers in less than two weeks.
Recently, CAF roped in the sports equipment and manufacturing company, Umbro as its technical sponsor for the upcoming African football tournaments.