Francois MBASSI: "SAMBO should become the second most popular sport after football"

The ECCAS Open International SAMBO Tournament was held for the first time in history on September 28 in Cameroon. The head of the Cameroonian SAMBO Federation Francois Mbassi summed up the results of the debut tournament held in Yaounde and also spoke about the prospects for the development of SAMBO in the region.

– The goal of this tournament was to give Cameroon and all African countries that took part in the competitions the opportunity to test their strength at the international level, as well as to increase the popularity of SAMBO in the region.

A few months ago, we took part in the African SAMBO Championships. For most sambists on the continent, this tournament was the only major international competition of the year. We have repeatedly discussed this issue at the Congress of the African SAMBO Confederation and decided that we need to hold more international competitions.

The ECCAS Open International SAMBO Tournament has become exactly the competition that is designed to increase the competitive experience of African athletes. I am sure that our open tournament has a great future and will become an annual event for sambists from the entire continent, and possibly for representatives of other countries of the world. I believe that this tournament has rightfully taken its place in the international FIAS calendar and will be firmly established there in the future.

– How important is it for African athletes to gain international experience? How will this affect their athletic performance?

– Such experience cannot be overestimated. The President of the African SAMBO Confederation and FIAS Vice President Dalil Skalli attended the tournament in Yaounde. He praised the competition and expressed his intention to organize a major international SAMBO tournament in Morocco.

I am sure that increasing the number of SAMBO competitions in Africa will allow sambists from our continent to win more medals at the main events of each year – the World SAMBO Championships, as well as multi-sport competitions.

This will increase the popularity of SAMBO in African countries and attract even more members to the large SAMBO family. We are already quite famous in the world, FIAS has received recognition from the IOC, and we need to continue active development. There is no popularization without competitions, it is competitions that make the sport that we popularize visible.

– At the tournament held in Yaounde, the stands were overflowing with spectators. How do you think this tournament will help attract your youth to SAMBO and how will it affect the popularity of the sport in Cameroon?

– I see that SAMBO is interesting to our sports community. We have noticed that young people in our country are very interested in SAMBO, especially Combat SAMBO.

This discipline is close to our martial arts, in Cameroon, Combat SAMBO is considered an incredibly spectacular sport, it invariably arouses great interest among spectators. I think the representatives of the countries participating in the past tournament were convinced of this. As for Cameroon, I will tell you a secret: my main goal is to make SAMBO the second most popular sport in our country after football.