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When Ugo Udezue quit his hard work as an agent for the National Basketball Association (NBA) four years ago at one of the top U.S. companies, he never imagined that he would be the first and only pioneering African sportswear company to officially wear it. the team this year at the Japanese Olympics.
At least, that wasn’t the initial plan.
It would certainly be easier to be in California with a list of clients that included players from the Golden State Warriors to the Brooklyn Nets. After all, Udezue has been in the U.S. since the mid-90s, when a basketball scholarship attracted him from his birth in Nigeria.
After making it to America, his homeland attracted new opportunities.
“I came back to Africa with the idea of starting a continental league that would match the NBA,” the former player told Al Jazeera. “The best sports talent comes from Africa. Even people like LeBron James can bring their lineage back to the homeland (sic).”
Udezue, who describes himself as pan-African, is responsible for uniting the continent through business and sport.
“It is important to show the opportunity that Africans have on the continent that Africa is viable for business and that Africans will spend money if a product is good,” the 43-year-old said.
Udezue was in the making of the Continental Basketball League in 2017, when his next business was created. At the time it was only to meet the demands for surplus kit and equipment in the league, as it expanded to 10 teams in six African countries.
“When we started the league I noticed that basketball was very slippery because it was made for air-conditioned gyms and we all know there aren’t too many in Africa,” Udezue said. “I went to China and developed a sweat-absorbing ball and immediately saw less turnover in the game.”
The self-described disruptor did not stop there.
“From my experience as a player, I realized that most Africans have flat feet, so we also developed a ‘breeze’ shoe to reduce the need for separate soles.”
This created the premise of AFA Sports, which is “Africa for Africa” and became one of the hottest sports goods and apparel companies on the continent.
“Our motto is“ This is ours, ”Udezue said, referring to the continent’s traditional community culture. “We’re trying to build something non-individualistic.”
In fact, the name “LIV (54)” was also inscribed on one of the front lines of the AFA, which contained 54 flags to represent a number of countries on the African continent.
‘LIV (54)’ was inscribed on one of the front lines of AFA Sports, with 54 flags representing the number of countries on the African continent. [Courtesy of AFA Sports]To put the pandemic well
Udezue’s view was merely idealistic. It was also strategic.
When the COVID-19 pandemic halted global trade last year, many businesses made efforts to keep afloat. AFA Sports was well positioned to take advantage of the sudden change in consumer tastes as it launched new training and clothing lines in 2019.
“When the pandemic broke out, everyone wanted to stay home and exercise,” Udezue said.
AFA Sports also built its factories for the continent in Lagos, as part of its mission to bring down the huge unemployment rate in Nigeria, officially over 32 per cent but even worse in the country’s broad informal sector.
“When he is a Nigerian national [football] the team went to the 2018 World Cup with the famous jersey designed, they made a lot of money from worldwide sales but there was no production in Nigeria, ”he laments.“ That is a huge opportunity lost for a country with very high unemployment. ”
The decision to produce locally instead of outsourcing it bore fruit when the global supply chains came to a standstill last year.
“When most international airspace was closed at the time, because imports were stagnant, we became very popular because we were the only ones who could produce and sell local sportswear cheaply,” Udezue said.
And Udezue intends to continue to capitalize on that momentum.
While many companies continue to operate their shutters, AFA Sports exports to 20 countries and currently has two stores in Lagos and Abuja – with plans to expand production.
AFA Sports plans to open an athletics shoe factory on the continent next year to increase production in Africa to 100 percent [Courtesy of AFA Sports]
“We currently make about 90% of our production in Africa and expect to achieve 100 percent by 2022 when we officially open our shoe factory,” he said, adding that the company has created about 800 jobs since its launch and wants to add more. a total of 2,000 seamstresses by the end of this year.
New products are also underway, including AFA Sports ’brand afrileisure brand, which will Africanize leisure clothing.
“We wanted to modernize something that already makes Africans proud, so we worked on traditional African outfits, such as kaftan and jalamia,” AFA founding director Sam Otigba told Al Jazeera.
For Udezue, who liquidated his savings and sold some assets to raise seed capital for AFA Sports, the rewards he got for taking the risks are sweeter. But that doesn’t mean he hasn’t encountered a lot of obstacles.
For example: the lack of a distribution channel on the continent to facilitate cross-border trade.
“It is easier to ship from Lagos to London than from Lagos to Nairobi (Kenya),” he explained.
There are other infrastructure challenges as well. The manufacture of shoe soles requires a large amount of reliable electricity. Nigeria’s power is occasional and the entire country produces just as much electricity as the US state of North Carolina, even though its population – about 200 million people – is 20 times larger.
Celebrity support
But Udezue has other advantages. Some of Africa’s biggest entertainment stars – Ghanaian rapper Sarkodie and Nigerian singer-songwriter Patoranking – are endorsed by AFA Sports.
“I actually stopped wearing other brands,” Nigerian singer-songwriter Paul Okoye, also known as Rudeboy, told Al Jazeera. “The nature of my work is kind of sporty. I move a lot and so I wear AFA for my concerts because it’s perfect for the weather here.”
Nigerian singer-songwriter Paul Okoye, also known as Rudeboy, endorses AFA Sports [Courtesy of AFA Sports]Okoye, a solo artist with more than 12 million followers on social media platforms today, was half of Africa’s largest music duo, P-Square.
AFA Sports not only sponsors the Nigerian national basketball team with Olympic ties in more than five African countries, but also sponsors various football leagues and sports camps and academies.
“Sports can become a real economic force for the entire continent,” says Udezue, who was recently named president of the Anambra Basketball Association in Nigeria’s eighth most populous state.
“We have everything we need here: resources, people,” he said. “And hopefully we can light a fire that will resonate across Africa.”
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