Ouagadougou: National public and private television stations in French-speaking sub-Saharan Africa have sent a letter to the president of the Confederation of African Football (CAF), Patrice Motsepe, denouncing the conditions deemed unfair for acquiring the broadcasting rights for the Africa Cup of Nations (CAN 2025).

According to Burkina Information Agency, the leaders of these channels state that they are only being offered 33 matches, compared to all 52 matches for the English-speaking public television channels and a non-African pay television operator. The signatories are outraged by "this policy which favours a non-African operator in the Francophone territory", to the detriment of free national channels, which are nevertheless accessible to the population and financed by African states.

This situation, which does not affect English- or Portuguese-speaking countries, "seems tailor-made to satisfy the dominant pay-TV operator" in Francophone Africa. Television stations warn of the risk of exclusion for millions of Africans, particularly those with lower incomes, who would be deprived of full and free access to their sporting and cultural heritage.

Recalling that the infrastructure of the AFCON and the national teams are financed at great expense by the States and therefore by African taxpayers, television executives are calling on the CAF president to reinstate a fair policy so that the AFCON remains a truly African event and to guarantee full and free broadcasting for all.

The correspondence is signed by ten French-speaking television channels, including the national channels of the Confederation of Sahel States (AES): ORTM (Mali), ORTN (Niger) and RTB (Burkina Faso).