The Afro-Arab Esports League is a gaming competition for countries in Africa and the Middle East, set to unite players across different cultural backgrounds and borders.
The league tagged “The Land of Heroes” featured players from 25 countries including UAE, Saudi Arabia, Namibia, South Africa, Djibouti, Ivory Coast, Lebanon, Burkina Faso, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Mali, Somalia, Cameroon, Morocco, Kenya, Ghana, Bahrain, Tunisia, Senegal, Kuwait, Oman, Egypt, Jordan, and Nigeria.
This year, the event was hosted by Saudi Arabia and took place in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia at Gamers8, a gaming festival organized by the Saudi Esports Federation, it featured tournaments in eFootball and Valorant where both male and female gamers compete separately at the challenge zone within Boulevard Riyadh City.
The league had a prize pool of $45 million, the largest in the history of Esports which was shared across different gaming titles during the event. Alongside the competition, the festival also featured a business forum tagged “The Next World Forum” and an expo area.
Ra3d (Thunder) from Egypt emerged as the winner of the Valorant competition for the second consecutive year amongst seven other teams, winning $6,664, The UAE came second, Kuwait third and Saudi Arabia fourth all sharing what was left of the $13, 300 prize pool.
The Jordanian team won the men’s championship title in eFootball, and the Saudi Arabia women’s team won the Valorant and eFootball championships.
Prince Faisal Bin Bandar Bin Sultan, chairman of the board of directors of the Saudi Esports Federation’s board of directors crowned the winning teams in the fierce competition.
He also stated the importance of the event in fostering peace and unity among the competing nations and hoped that over time, more nations would join the league.
