Football fans around the world will feel all the emotions of the Total Energies Africa Cup of Nations Cameroon 2021 from January 9 to February 6, 2022. Orange, an official partner since 2008, will help fans enjoy their football passion while making a positive environmental impact through its "Orange Sponsors Change" program for this 33rd tournament.

Since it began in 1957, the Africa Cup of Nations has brought together the best teams from the African continent every two years. Over the decades, the competition has become a world-class sporting event, attracting more than 412 million viewers and one billion fans across the globe.

In 2022, the competition takes place in Cameroon, in six stadiums across five different cities. Of the 24 qualifying teams, 11 are from Orange operating countries: Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire, Burkina Faso, Egypt, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Sierra Leone, Mali, Morocco, Senegal, and Tunisia.

Orange Sponsors Change : passion for the environment
This latest program gives all football fans and young players the opportunity to enjoy their passion for football whilst having a positive impact on their communities and the planet. Since 2018, the “Orange Sponsors Change” program has promoted the collection and recycling of plastic waste.

In the lead up to Total Energies Africa Cup of Nations Cameroon 2021, since October 2021, we have been organizing local tournaments for players aged 12-13 in 12 African countries (Morocco, Sierra Leone, Mali, Liberia, Cameroon, Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Burkina Faso, Central African Republic and DRC).

This unique sporting event combines fans’ passion for football and environmental protection. People are encouraged to collect and recycle their plastic waste via recycling bins during the tournaments, and in return for their recycling efforts, Orange works with local companies to recycle the plastic collected and return them to fans and their communities in the form of soccer jerseys, balls and even soccer fields constructed exclusively from recyclable materials.

The first local tournaments involved thousands of young people and their families, making it possible to collect several metric tons of plastic waste:

In Cameroon, football players taking part in “Orange Sponsors Change” joined forces with the Orange “Clean Your City” initiative to collect waste in seven cities across the country. A total of 1,300 volunteers lined the streets to collect 14 metric tons of plastic, which will be transformed into football equipment and redistributed to football academies in Cameroon.
In Côte d'Ivoire, 500 players from 50 clubs across the country took part in the competition, collecting more than 19 metric tons of plastic that will be turned into construction equipment.

The winners will then be invited to the international final of the “Orange Sponsors Change” tournament next spring, which will be hosted in one of Orange’s operating countries.

Source: Orange newsroom