Washington DC’s professional soccer club, DC United has partnered with the Ghana Tourism Authority (GTA) and the Ghana Football Association (GFA) to launch the Capital City Africa Cup. With this partnership, the winner of Ghana’s Premier League (GPL) each year will play DC United. The announcement was made during the Ghana Business and Investment Summit in DC on 19th September 2022 at Ghana’s Embassy in DC.
Washington DC is one of the key markets promoting travel and tourism to Ghana. With a vibrant Ghanaian and African community and a large population of African Americans visiting the continent of Africa, this sports collaboration is aimed at bringing the communities together and promote Ghana and Africa.
“This initiative will not only help bridge the gap between Ghanaians and Americans, but it will lay the foundation for a strong alliance through the exchange of tourism, culture and the promotion of soccer.” said Mark Addo, Vice President of GFA.
“The GFA is excited about this new alliance with DC United, and we look forward to collaborating on many fronts to promote soccer in our domains” he said. Mr. Addo also spoke about the GFA’s is investment in youth football aimed at developing a strong base for the future of Ghana Soccer. “We have now been focusing on youth development by promoting youth football. This has been a passion in Ghana for many years but lacked support through official structures”, he said.
In the United States, soccer is one of the most fast-growing sports played by young people. In 2020 it was estimated that 17.8 million Americans played soccer. “As many of you all know, the power of soccer is immense. It brings people together, and especially wherever you find a ball you find young people. We are honoured to be presenting you with our DC United jerseys and look forward to this long relationship ahead”, said Shanell Mosely; Director of Community Relations at DC United. She presented the DC United’s home jersey to Mark Addo who also presented a jersey of the Ghana Black Stars to her.
Washington DC is one of the most affluent and educated metropolitan areas in the United States and houses some of the highly regarded Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU), i.e., Howard University and Bowie University.
Paxton Baker, CEO of PKB Enterprises said the idea behind launching the Capital City Africa Cup is to “establish the city of Washington DC as the anchor to showcase talent coming out of Africa in arts, culture and soccer”. He explained that the initial game for the Capital City Africa Cup will be in March 2023 and will be an annual event taking place at Audi Field in Washington DC. Mr. Baker indicated that, the week of the game will be dubbed “Ghana Week” in Washington DC which will feature arts, food fairs and culture prior to the commencement of the game between Kumasi Asante Kotoko (current winners of the GPL) and DC United.
In attendance was the Minister of Tourism Arts and Culture, Hon. Ibrahim Awal, the CEOs of GTA and GIPC, Akwasi Agyeman and Yoofi Grant respectively.
