CAF’s Schools Football Prize Model Is Building More Than Pitches

The Confederation of African Football has begun a series of handovers for school buildings and sports facilities financed through prize money from the CAF African Schools Football Championship. The schedule starts with a school building in Addis Ababa and continues through South Sudan, South Africa, Egypt, Guinea, The Gambia, Benin and Seychelles.

The assets range from classrooms, a computer laboratory and a borehole to football pitches, a swimming pool, dressing rooms, an outdoor gym and a multi-sport facility. That variety makes the programme more than a football story. It is an experiment in converting competition money into lasting public infrastructure for students and communities.

CAF launched the championship in 2022 with an initial $10 million contribution from the Motsepe Foundation. Its current prize structure awards $300,000 to continental winners in both the boys’ and girls’ competitions, $200,000 to runners-up and $150,000 to third-place teams. Zonal winners receive $100,000, with $75,000 and $50,000 for second and third place.

The key design choice is that these awards are ring-fenced for non-professional football and educational projects. Winning schools do not simply receive unrestricted cash. The money is intended to strengthen facilities, learning resources and the broader environment in which young people study and play.

Prize money becomes a development instrument

Sports prize money usually rewards a team for past performance. CAF’s model tries to use it as capital for future development. A school that wins on the field can invest in assets that benefit many students, including those who never join the football team.

CAF’s March 2026 impact summary listed five new classrooms and a five-a-side pitch in Goma, a library serving more than 5,000 students in Addis Ababa, a borehole in The Gambia, a computer laboratory in Guinea, an artificial pitch in Egypt, an outdoor gym in Seychelles, cooking equipment in Malawi, a school bus in Uganda and other improvements.

The new handover series gives the programme a more visible accountability moment. Announcements and allocations are easy to make. A completed building, working water system or functioning laboratory can be inspected by students, parents and local authorities. The shift from planned project to handed-over asset is where development claims become testable.

This approach also changes the meaning of a school tournament. The competition is not only a pathway for identifying elite players. It becomes a mechanism for directing resources into institutions that educate and protect young people. Football creates attention and aspiration; the infrastructure can create value long after a result is forgotten.

The continental scale is significant

CAF describes the championship as the world’s largest schools-football competition. Its official programme page says the 2025/26 season involved 49 countries, reached more than three million participants since launch and engaged more than 82,000 schools.

The annual prize pool is listed at $4 million across continental and zonal competitions for boys and girls. CAF also says more than $2.6 million has been contributed to educational and sporting refurbishments. Its 2024/25 activity report stated that more than 70 percent of identified development projects had been completed and 28 infrastructure initiatives remained under way at the time of reporting.

Those figures show why the model deserves scrutiny as well as praise. At continental scale, even modest projects can reach many communities. But a large network also makes oversight harder. CAF, national associations, schools, contractors and local authorities all share responsibility for selection, procurement, construction and use.

The handover ceremonies should therefore be treated as the start of each asset’s operating life, not the end of the story. A building must be staffed and maintained. A computer laboratory needs devices, connectivity, security and trained teachers. A borehole requires water-quality checks and repairs. A pitch needs safe surfaces and access rules.

Transparent project selection will build trust

The programme’s next phase should publish a simple public dashboard for every winning school. It could show the prize amount, selected project, procurement method, contractor, planned and actual completion dates, final cost and maintenance responsibility.

CAF does not need to manage every local detail itself, but it can set a common reporting standard. National football associations should disclose how schools chose projects and whether students, teachers and parents participated. Local authorities should confirm land, building approvals and operating support.

That transparency would help answer practical questions. Was a classroom chosen because overcrowding was the school’s highest priority? Was a synthetic pitch selected because it could serve both students and the community? Did the borehole address a verified water need? Are facilities accessible to girls and students with disabilities?

Clear information also protects the programme from inflated claims. A renovated room should not be presented as a new school. A project funded partly by another institution should identify each contribution. Public trust grows when organisations are precise about what their money delivered.

Maintenance is the real legacy test

Across Africa, public facilities often deteriorate because capital funding is easier to secure than maintenance budgets. Donors and institutions like ribbon-cutting ceremonies; schools are left with electricity bills, broken pumps, damaged surfaces or equipment that cannot be replaced.

Every CAF-supported asset should therefore include a multi-year maintenance plan. For physical buildings, that means responsibility for cleaning, repairs, insurance and utilities. For technology projects, it means software, connectivity, replacement devices and cybersecurity. For water systems, it means testing, pump servicing and a local repair fund.

A small share of prize money could be reserved for maintenance, or schools could be required to secure a written commitment from the responsible education authority. Community access can also generate modest revenue where appropriate, but fees must not exclude the students for whom the facility was built.

The best evidence of success will not be how a facility looks at handover. It will be whether it remains safe and useful after three or five years. CAF should return to completed sites and publish follow-up assessments. That would make the championship unusual in a sector where post-project evaluation is often weak.

Girls’ participation should shape every project

The championship gives boys and girls parallel competitive structures and equal top-level prize allocations. That is an important design feature in a region where girls often receive less access to pitches, coaching, equipment and safe changing facilities.

Equal prize money does not automatically produce equal daily access. Schools should publish timetables showing how girls’ teams and other female students use new facilities. Dressing rooms, sanitation, safeguarding and transport arrangements can determine whether participation is practical and safe.

Projects that are not primarily sporting should also be assessed through a gender lens. Better water access can reduce time spent collecting water. A secure computer laboratory can expand digital access. Improved kitchens can strengthen school meals. These benefits can influence attendance and retention, especially for students facing household or economic pressure.

CAF’s capacity-building programmes for young referees, reporters, medical officers, coaches and safeguarding personnel create another pathway. Participation data should be disaggregated by sex and tracked over time so the programme can show whether girls move from playing into leadership and technical roles.

Sport and education should reinforce each other

School football can improve health, teamwork and belonging, but it can also create tension if sporting success is separated from learning. The strongest programme will protect study time, reward educational progress and ensure that talented players are not treated only as future professional assets.

CAF can encourage schools to connect competition participation with attendance, safeguarding and academic support. Coaches and teachers should coordinate schedules, while students who travel for tournaments need plans to catch up on missed lessons.

The championship’s infrastructure model already recognises that education and sport are linked. Libraries, classrooms and laboratories stand beside pitches, gyms and changing rooms in the project list. That balance should remain central as the competition grows.

Very few participants will become professional footballers. Every participant, however, should gain skills, confidence, health benefits and a stronger learning environment. Development success must be judged by that broader population, not only by the players later signed by clubs.

Local procurement can multiply the impact

Infrastructure spending can create additional value when local businesses and workers participate. Schools and associations should use competitive procurement, but project design can still encourage qualified local contractors, suppliers and apprentices.

A classroom block can support local builders. A borehole can create maintenance work for trained technicians. A computer laboratory can use regional service providers. Sports facilities can create coaching, groundskeeping and event-management opportunities after construction.

CAF should track local procurement and training without imposing quotas that compromise safety or value for money. The objective is to ensure that development spending circulates through communities while projects meet common engineering and safeguarding standards.

Regional purchasing could also reduce costs for repeat assets such as artificial surfaces, solar power, water systems and computer equipment. CAF can negotiate standards and pricing at scale while leaving final implementation with local partners.

A model other sports bodies can study

The ring-fenced-prize concept could be adapted by leagues, federations and sponsors beyond football. A competition can retain sporting excitement while directing part of its commercial value into facilities that communities choose and can verify.

Replication requires discipline. Prize allocations must be predictable, projects must respond to real needs, procurement must be transparent and maintenance must be funded. Without those safeguards, a well-intended programme can produce scattered assets with uneven quality.

Independent evaluation would strengthen the case for expansion. Researchers could compare attendance, enrolment, sports participation, girls’ access and community use before and after investments. Cost-per-beneficiary data would help CAF decide whether future funds should favour classrooms, water, digital facilities or sports infrastructure in different settings.

The organisation could also invite schools to exchange lessons. Administrators who successfully maintain a library or pitch can share operating models with new recipients. A continental competition should create a continental learning network, not merely a list of isolated winners.

The handovers begin the accountability phase

CAF’s September schedule places completed assets in front of the public. Addis Ababa leads the series, followed by Juba, Pietermaritzburg, Pretoria and Cairo, with further ceremonies planned in Kindia, Banjul, Cotonou and Anse Boileau.

The programme has already demonstrated a valuable principle: football money can build more than football facilities. It can support classrooms, water, technology, transport and nutrition while preserving a route for young players to compete.

The next test is whether the assets stay open, safe, inclusive and useful. CAF should publish project records, revisit completed sites and measure educational and sporting outcomes. National associations and schools should make access and maintenance visible to their communities.

If that accountability follows the ceremonies, the African Schools Football Championship can offer a credible model of sport-led development. Its most important result may not appear on a scoreboard. It may be a student reading in a new library, a girl training on a safe pitch or a community drawing clean water from an asset built because a school team was given the chance to compete.