MTN GHANA QUADRUPLES COMMUNITY FOOTBALL ACTIVATION FROM FOUR TO 16 TEAMS

By ASVG Media

MTN Ghana has dramatically expanded its SavannahFest Inter-Community Football Gala in Tamale, increasing participation from only four teams last year to 16 clubs in 2026 as the telecommunications company marks 30 years in Ghana. MTN says the competition is designed to identify emerging football talent while strengthening its relationship with communities across the Northern Region. The football property sits inside a wider SavannahFest platform combining sport with music, health initiatives, customer engagement and community development.

This is a useful example of how African brands can move sponsorship down the sports value chain and closer to consumers. Instead of purchasing visibility exclusively around elite professional football, MTN is using grassroots competition as a customer-engagement platform while associating its brand with talent identification and community development. Expanding from four to 16 teams also creates more matches, participants, families, communities and potential digital content around the property. For African sponsors, grassroots sport can be considerably more than CSR when it is deliberately connected to customer acquisition, local activation, talent pathways and measurable brand engagement.