About Us

MADEINAFRICASPORT.COM

WHO WE ARE

Made In Africa Sports is a small group of young journalists, editors, analysts, fact-checkers, data scientists, producers, and designers who are passionate about becoming the largest evidence-based and open-source sports editorial team on the continent.

We are a pan-African sports media organization founded by Olamide O. Abe in January 2022 with a mission to generate conversations aimed at sparking continental debate and heightening the engagement level of fans for the 2021 Africa Cup of Nations.

WHAT WE DO

●       DATA REPORTING

We are devoted to using data analytics to empower African athletes and teams to reach their full potential. We believe that data can be used to improve performance, identify talent, and make better decisions when we track statistics and make them available publicly to view, distribute, and reuse for free. We will also visualize the data to create an in-depth storytelling style formulated through unprecedented access to the numbers that make up the undercurrent of sport through shareable stats, tips, graphics, editorial and video content.

This open-source database represents a new, much more ambitious challenge for us, with coverage of over six African leagues: Nigeria Professional Football League, Ghana Premier League, Morocco Botola, Egyptian Premier League and the Tunisian Ligue Professionnelle 1.

However, we recognize that this only begins to scratch the surface of African football. In addition to the leagues we currently cover, there are a host of other nations with their domestic leagues, not to mention CAF competitions like the Champions League and Confederations Cup. In addition to these league stats, there are also international competitions like AFCON and WAFCON. And, in addition to the men’s game, there’s an entire universe of women’s competitions.

Our long-term vision for statistics and data includes all of that, as well as transfers, individual results, future fixtures, a suite of analytical tools, and much more, all while ensuring Made In Africa Sport is as fast and easy to use. In the short term, we are also planning on adding events from other sports regularly as we grow.

The usage of data in sports reportage doesn’t need to be a lecture anymore. We’d like our work to be compelling enough to attract those innovating in our industry, and at the same time comprehensible enough for the average sports fan to share in their group chats. No matter who you are, we strive to create a fresh path toward understanding and contextualizing African athletes, teams, and leagues you follow. That’s it.

And by the way, let us know how we’re doing. If you’d like to reach out about our stories, write us at [email protected]. Surely, one of us will read it and get back to you.

●       PODCASTING

We started with an informative podcast series with the aim of not just breaking the news but breaking it, then surrounding it with analysis channeled at providing solutions to sports underdevelopment in Africa through rigorous, compelling journalistic coverage of responses.

Likewise, we kept everyone within and outside the shores of the continent up to date with all the latest news, previews, reviews and opinion from Africa’s flagship tournament with analysis from journalists across the host cities in Cameroon and tackled all the talking points from the fans’ perspective, every matchday throughout the tournament.

●    EVIDENCE-BASED AND OPEN-SOURCE JOURNALISM

The mainstream media has lost interest in adhering to the ethical requirement that all journalistic reports be supported by evidence. Instead, they prefer to present their work with the help of anonymous authorities to give the impression that something concrete and important has been said, even though the claim may actually have been ambiguous or vague.

These approaches should be avoided at all costs because they are deceptive. Why can’t we verify the claims for ourselves if their sources are reliable and the evidence is compelling?

At Made In Africa Sports, we commit to being fully transparent in how we write our reports by sharing full transcripts, video, and audio of interviews. Whenever possible, all readers should be able to retrace the steps we took in establishing the truth.

Only when working with sources who need to be protected, such as whistleblowers, should there be exceptions. But let’s face it, that’s not often the case. When it is, the reader should be informed in detail as to why. Don’t you get displeased of seeing articles with citations like “we understand” “according to an official” “our sources” “expert says” “it is believed that” and “we learn”?

The complete context of an interview will be made available publicly. Instead of trying to get people to make insignificant errors, we want to give them the opportunity to express their opinions meaningfully. This is better for them, better for us, and better for you. We do not operate a business strategy that depends on chasing clicks, so it won’t make for the most clickbait headlines.

If we have an exclusive interview and we use a section of it in an article, the only way the public can know whether the quote was fairly reported, or taken out of context, is by checking the source. Wherever we can, we’ll publish the entire conversation in the most accessible format, so you can check exactly what was asked, what was said, and even in what tone. This makes it much easier to comprehend what a source—who might not be media-trained—was attempting to communicate.

Our reporters conduct research and write articles based on publicly available data when we are not working with exclusive content; this enables our readers to relate more readily to visual evidence in the story without having to consult confidential sources.

This open-source method, which mandates our journalists to reveal the methodology behind their reporting, will, in our opinion, improve transparency and aid to rebuild public trust in media.

●       FACT-CHECKING

Our mission is a non-partisan one. We are loyal to neither fans nor players – only the truth. We make it a point of duty to combat fake news by independently fact-checking statements from clubs, federations, players, coaches, and influencers, as well as reporting by other journalists. We also vet many widely shared claims that rocket across the African sporting sphere every day by interviewing primary sources, consulting public data and conducting analyses of media, including photos and video.

We additionally welcome our readers to send us claims to fact-check. If you believe a story or statement deserves a fact-check, or an error has been made with a published fact-check, please contact our fact-check editor at [email protected]