By Ajong Mbapndah L
Africa produces some of the world’s finest athletes and commands a huge following across football, basketball and other sports. Yet much of the money, infrastructure and commercial value surrounding African talent continues to be generated elsewhere. Nicolas Pompigne-Mognard believes that can change.
The Founder and Executive Chairman of African Collaborations Group (ACG) is making the case for a new approach to sports infrastructure, one that moves beyond expensive stadiums that come alive for major matches but struggle to pay their way during the rest of the year.
His answer is the sports and entertainment district: a mixed-use development where stadiums and arenas sit alongside hotels, restaurants, retail outlets, conference facilities, offices, residences and public spaces. ACG is developing that concept through Victory District™, with projects potentially valued at between $500 million and $1 billion or more.
For Pompigne-Mognard, the argument is as much about economics as sport. Africa has the talent, fans and a young and growing population. What it needs, he says, is infrastructure that can attract investment, create jobs and keep more of the value generated by African sport on the continent.
ACG is positioning itself at the centre of that process, bringing governments, development finance institutions, private investors, sports bodies and technical partners around the same table. The organisation has also assembled an Advisory Board that includes former FIFA Secretary General Fatma Samoura, whose experience in international sport and development gives additional weight to its ambitions.
In this interview with Pan African Visions, Pompigne-Mognard discusses why Africa needs to rethink the traditional stadium model, how ACG plans to finance major projects, the commercial opportunity surrounding African sport, the role of Fatma Samoura and his long-term vision for an industry he believes can become a serious driver of investment and growth.
What is African Collaborations Group, and what gap in Africa’s sports and entertainment landscape led you to create it?
Africa has 1.5 billion people. It is the youngest continent in the world. By 2050, it will have 2.5 billion. Its sport economy is projected to reach USD 20 billion by 2035. But none of that potential will materialise without the sport infrastructure to support it.
So far, Africa has only produced white elephants: stadiums built for one event, empty the rest of the year, draining public finances. Africa needs a new model: the sport and entertainment district. Multi-sport, multi-purpose, a full ecosystem of assets designed to be financially self-sustaining.
For a sport and entertainment district to become a reality, very different stakeholders must work together. Governments need to provide the mandate and the land, development finance institutions need to provide the capital, the private sector needs to invest, build and operate, sport governing bodies need to bring the competitions, and technical partners need to design and deliver. None of them can deliver this alone.
Someone must sit at the centre, convene all of them, structure the project to a standard that every party can commit to, and drive it from concept to the point where financing can flow and construction can begin. In investment language, that process is called origination.
That is what ACG does. ACG is the origination platform. We bring the right stakeholders around the same table, we structure the project, we lead the feasibility work, and we take it to the point where institutions can finance it and contractors can build it. We created ACG because no one else was doing this, and because the sport and entertainment district is the only model that guarantees the financial sustainability of sport infrastructure in Africa.
ACG is promoting integrated sport and entertainment districts rather than standalone venues. What does that model look like, and why is it better suited to Africa’s needs and opportunities?
A standalone stadium is used 25 or 30 days a year. For the remaining 335 days, the lights are off and the maintenance bills still arrive. Across Africa, governments have spent hundreds of millions of dollars building stadiums that become fiscal burdens within five years. That model has failed.
ACG’s answer to that failed model is Victory District™, an integrated sport and entertainment district designed to operate 365 days a year. It combines sport venues, stadiums, indoor arenas, aquatics centres and training facilities with hotels, conference centres, retail, cinemas, restaurants, residential developments, commercial offices and public spaces within a single master-planned district. A single district can include 15 to 20 different asset types generating revenue simultaneously.
The principle is straightforward: a stadium is a cost, a district is an economy. The sport venues are the anchor. The surrounding ecosystem is what makes the infrastructure financially self-sustaining. For African governments managing tight budgets, that is the difference between infrastructure that drains the treasury and infrastructure that contributes to it.
Africa has a young population, a huge appetite for sport and entertainment, and world-class talent. How large is the commercial opportunity, and where do you see the strongest potential?
The numbers speak for themselves. Africa’s population is 1.5 billion today and will reach 2.5 billion by 2050. The median age is 19.5 years. More than half of all Africans will live in cities by 2035. The demand for sport, entertainment and urban infrastructure is not theoretical. It is demographic.
Africa’s sport economy is projected to reach USD 20 billion by 2035. Yet at the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations, France’s Ligue 1 supplied more players to the tournament than any league on the African continent. That single statistic illustrates the paradox: Africa produces the talent, but the infrastructure to retain that talent and capture its economic value exists elsewhere.
The potential is strongest in markets that combine large populations, passionate sporting cultures, government commitment to infrastructure development and commercial viability. Several African countries fit that profile across West Africa, East Africa, Southern Africa and North Africa. We see opportunity across the entire continent, and our pipeline reflects that.
How do you intend to finance these projects, and what roles do you see for governments, private investors, development finance institutions, sovereign wealth funds and other partners?
Each Victory District™ is structured as a public-private partnership. The roles are clearly defined. Governments provide the mandate, the enabling environment and, in some cases, the land. Development finance institutions provide concessional and institutional capital, both debt and equity. Private investors and developers provide commercial capital and operational expertise. Sport governing bodies provide the demand, the competition calendar and the institutional framework around which the district is programmed.
ACG’s role is to originate and coordinate all of this. We sit at the centre, aligning stakeholders who do not naturally work together and structuring projects to the standards that each type of capital requires. The financing is assembled project by project through a dedicated special purpose vehicle, ensuring that each district is independently funded, governed and accountable.
What makes this model work is that no single stakeholder carries the entire burden. The risk, cost and reward are distributed across governments, institutions and the private sector in a way that is sustainable for all parties.
What guided your choice of ACG’s Advisory Board members, and what expertise, influence and networks were you looking to bring around the table?
The Advisory Board was designed to reflect the full spectrum of stakeholders involved in originating sport and entertainment infrastructure at scale. We needed people who understand global sport governance, because our projects serve the sport ecosystem. We needed people who understand international finance and development institutions, because our projects must be structured to institutional standards.
We needed people who understand infrastructure delivery, because our projects must be buildable and operable. And we needed people who understand entertainment, media and hospitality, because our districts are mixed-use ecosystems, not single-purpose venues.
Every Advisory Board member brings not just expertise but relationships and credibility in a specific domain that is critical to ACG’s model. The calibre of the people who have chosen to join tells you something important about how the market views what we are building. These are individuals who could lend their names to any initiative. They chose ACG because they believe in the model and recognise the gap it fills.
Why was Fatma Samoura the right addition to the Advisory Board, and how do you expect her experience at FIFA and the United Nations to shape ACG’s direction, credibility and global reach?
Fatma Samoura served as Secretary General of FIFA for seven years, the first woman and first African to hold that position. Before FIFA, she spent over two decades with the United Nations, including senior leadership roles across Africa and Asia. The combination of global sport governance and international development experience is directly relevant to what ACG is building.
Fatma understands the infrastructure gap from the inside. During her tenure at FIFA, the ambition to see FIFA-standard infrastructure in every African country was clear. What was missing was the mechanism to deliver it. ACG is building that mechanism, and Fatma’s insight into what works and what does not at the institutional level is invaluable.
She also brings relationships across African and global sport governance, development institutions and government leadership that directly support ACG’s engagement at the highest levels. Her presence on the Advisory Board is a statement of credibility that resonates with every audience we engage: governments, DFIs, investors and sport bodies.
How has ACG been received by governments, investors, sports authorities and potential partners, and what has the response told you about the appetite for this model?
The reception has been overwhelmingly positive, and frankly faster than we anticipated. We have received formal government engagement from multiple African countries. Development finance institutions have expressed strong interest in participating both at the platform level and at the project level.
What the response tells me is that the gap ACG fills has been felt for a long time. Governments want to build sport infrastructure but have lacked a credible partner to structure it to institutional standards. DFIs want to finance it but have lacked a pipeline of bankable projects. Sport federations want to host competitions in Africa but cannot find countries with adequate facilities.
ACG connects all of these. The appetite is not just strong. It has been waiting for someone to organise it.
Beyond sport, what economic impact could these districts have on tourism, hospitality, real estate, entertainment, technology, jobs and opportunities for young Africans?
The economic impact extends far beyond sport, and that is by design. A single Victory District™ is a development of USD 500 million to USD 1 billion or more. During construction, it creates thousands of direct jobs. Once operational, it sustains permanent employment across hospitality, retail, security, facilities management, event coordination, coaching, sports science, media production and administration. These are year-round positions, not seasonal matchday work.
For young Africans specifically, the impact is profound. On a continent where 40% of the population is under 15, the district model creates structured pathways into professional sport, coaching, sports medicine, event management and the broader sport and entertainment economy through on-site training academies and development facilities.
The tourism dimension is significant. A Victory District™ creates a new reason to visit: international sporting events, continental championships, concerts and conferences. These bring visitors who stay in hotels, eat in restaurants and spend in local economies year-round.
The presence of institutional-grade infrastructure also signals to the global investment community that the host country is a serious destination for private capital, which benefits every sector of the economy, not just sport.
Looking five to ten years ahead, what is your long-term vision for ACG, and what would success mean for the organisation and Africa’s wider sports and entertainment economy?
Success would mean that Victory District™ has become what it was always designed to be: not a single project, but a replicable blueprint. A proven model deployed across multiple African countries, each adapted to local context but built on the same bankable, institutionally credible framework.
I would want to see African athletes training and competing in world-class facilities on their own continent. I would want to see sport functioning as a real economic sector in Africa, with its own infrastructure, its own revenue systems and its own talent development pathways, not as a cost centre dependent on public subsidy. And I would want to see ACG recognised as the platform that proved it was possible.
The wider ambition is to demonstrate that Africa can develop, finance and operate integrated infrastructure to the highest international standards. If we succeed with sport, we will have created a model and a methodology that applies far beyond sport.
That is the long-term vision: infrastructure that works, that pays for itself and that creates lasting value for African communities and economies.
