A delegation of the World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC), lead by President Riccardo Fraccari, will be attending the Association of National Olympic Committees for Africa (ANOCA) ExCo Meeting in Abuja, Nigeria on Wednesday and Thursday (29-30 September). The delegation will be given the floor to speak on Thursday about baseball and softball's new urban discipline, Baseball5, and its introduction in all major multi-sport events in Africa, ahead of the Dakar 2026 Youth Olympic Games.
The launch of an urban, five-on-five discipline has been a boost to baseball and softball development, particularly in Africa and Europe.
Baseball5 -- WBSC’s new youth-focused, mixed-gender, urban discipline -- is fully in line with the Agenda 2020+5 of the IOC and the founding principles of the Olympic Movement. Requiring only a ball to play, Baseball5 will make its Youth Olympic Games debut at Dakar 2026 in Senegal, Africa as the first ever mixed-gender team sport.
Baseball and softball development in Africa has been one of the top WBSC priorities since the new world governing body was formally established in 2014. The WBSC hosted the three-day African Summit from 5-7 May 2017, gathering high-ranking officials from the WBSC, the African Baseball and Softball Association (ABSA), and 20 national governing bodies to discuss baseball and softball continental development across all age-groups, with a particular emphasis on driving youth and women’s expansion in the bat-and-ball team sport to unprecedented levels.
As a result, WBSC launched the African Development Project, a three-phase development programme implemented to boost baseball and softball across Africa.
ANOCA is an international organization based in Abuja, Nigeria, which brings together the fifty-four African National Olympic Committees. ANOCA runs programmes such as the African Games, African Youth Games, African Beach Games, ANOCA U-23 Championship, Olympic Qualifying Tournaments and ANOCA Women Olympic Tournaments.
