World Lacrosse today welcomed a quartet of new members in Africa – Botswana, Mozambique, Zambia and Zimbabwe – bringing its global total to 90 National Governing Bodies.
The incoming class brings the number of federations in the Africa Association of Lacrosse to 15. World Lacrosse has added a record 11 members in 2023 and 17 in the last two calendar years.
World Lacrosse CEO Jim Scherr said: “I am excited to welcome these four countries into our global community and into the rapidly growing Africa Association of Lacrosse. We remain committed to the development of lacrosse in Africa across a diverse Continental Federation, and we are thrilled for these new members to pick up and enjoy the game.”
Rufus Ntiamoah, World Lacrosse manager of sport in Africa, said: “I am pleased to welcome four new members from the south of Africa to our strong lacrosse family. We have added nine nations to our membership this year and now have considerable hotbeds of development in three distinct regions of Africa: west, east and south. We will continue our growth altogether as well as through these regions behind the ongoing work of the AAL.”
The AAL has seen a banner year for growth, with the addition of these four new federations following a successful Wildfire Festival hosted by Ghana Lacrosse in August, the inclusion of Benin, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Sierra Leone and Togo in March, and Uganda’s journey to the 2023 World Lacrosse Men’s Championship in June after advancing out of the first ever AAL Qualifier in late 2022. The Kenyan women also competed at the 2023 Super Sixes in Canada.
Overall, World Lacrosse has added 11 members in 2023 across three continents, with Brazil and Malta joining the nine new African federations.
In the past decade, World Lacrosse has officially doubled its membership with 45 new nations joining the previous community of 45 members.
