African Nations Cup

The Hon. J.E. HANSON (15:40): A few weeks ago, I had the great pleasure of attending one of our state's premier annual sporting events, the 2024 African Nations Cup. For those who might not know, the African Nations Cup is a multicultural football tournament that has been running for over a decade. The tournament brings together teams from South Australia's African community to compete over three weekends of some pretty exciting football.

With 22 men's teams and six women's teams representing the wide diversity of our South Australian African community, the competition aims to develop and, I think, inspire the next generation of football stars while fostering a sense of belonging, unity and social cohesion amongst the players and, I hope, the wider community. This year's tournament had teams from Burundi, Cameroon, Congo-Kinshasa, Congo-Brazzaville, Cote d'Ivoire, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Guinea, Kenya, Liberia, Malawi, Mali, Nigeria, the mighty Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Togo, South Africa and Uganda.

Organised by the African Communities Council of South Australia for the first time in a number of years, the tournament faced a few challenges prior to kick-off, but thanks to the dedication and sacrifice of many volunteers and community leaders, the tournament was able to return to its roots as a community-run festival of football, bringing back the vibrant community food stalls and cultural exhibitions.

I had the pleasure of watching the men's grand final between South Sudan and Burundi. I have to say, the exceptionally high level of competition and skills that I witnessed from both teams was incredible. The game finished in a victory for Burundi. I am rightly informed this was a vindication for the Burundian team, one of the most consistent and dominant teams the competition has seen in its over a decade of performance.

With several years of finishing second, the team's resilience and discipline showed in the final. Led by their captain, Aladin Irabona, and top goal scorer, Gildas, the team had an unbeaten run through the tournament, culminating with a victory in the final. Although I did not witness the women's grand final between Liberia and South Sudan, I could see from the celebrations during the trophy presentation that the victory meant a lot to the Liberian women's team, who had prevailed in a 1-nil victory over South Sudan.

All of this would not have been possible without the generous support of sponsors such as Simba Car Hire, who I had the great pleasure of meeting also last week, and also the Australian Migrant Resource Centre, Torrens University and many of the individual team sponsors.

I want to take a quick opportunity to acknowledge some of the key volunteers who contributed to make this year's tournament such a success. Obviously, there were the magnificent Mr Denis Yengi, Chairperson of the African Communities Council of South Australia, and the tournament director, Arsene Iribuka. There were Albert Barrie, Rose Mangiroza, Su Mapholisa, Abidemi Akinloye, Richmond Kgatle, Mohammed Keita, Deng, Hosea Kiprono, Tom Nyiha, Stephen Tongan, Dr Chi and Dr Sumbo, Patrick Moyima, Melissa Nininahazwe, Marcus Jallah, Derek Chapman, Rumbi Gaura, Rocky Morris, Siegfried Mends and Adrian Griffin.

I also want to acknowledge my colleagues in the other place who attended, the Hon. Zoe Bettison, Minister for Multicultural Affairs, and also Mr John Fulbrook, member for Playford, for their support of the tournament. I very much look forward to this tournament continuing on next year. I know with the magnificent support of the sponsors that are in place—and I hope will continue to be in place for the tournament going forward—we will see it again, because I have to say the action was pretty magnificent. There is a lot to look forward to in football in African communities in South Australia.

The goodwill generated on the pitch really runs juxtaposed to what we often see, very sadly, in much of the media covering our African communities in South Australia. I really hope to see more of these types of events in our media and on the front page of our papers, instead of often what we do tend to see. I look forward to hosting the champion teams, and indeed the volunteers, at parliament in the new year and supporting next year's tournament myself.