As the Basketball Africa League (BAL)’s Nile Conference 2025 tips off in Kigali on Saturday, May 17, Amadou Gallo-Fall, the President of the BAL has reflected on the impact of the competition since it started in 2021. Rwanda has hosted the tournament, at least in part, for the past four seasons. The country is once again welcoming the BAL to Kigali from May 17-26 as four top teams will be rubbing shoulders in the Nile Conference at BK Arena. Times Sport sat down with Gallo-Fall for an interview where he talked about a number of things including what to expect from the Nile Conference, as well as the impact of the BAL, among others. Q. The Nile Conference is happening here for the very first time. This being the fifth edition of the BAL, what is special about it? First of all five years, that's a milestone, especially, building this league, launching – having that historic launch in the middle of the pandemic. Anytime you're doing something that's never been done before, you're grateful when it just gets off the ground, and then shows signs that we sustained progress over five years. So for me, it's like the team we were able to build. Obviously, this takes an incredibly talented team. I'm the guy that people see, but the talent in our BAL operations and across the NBA Africa family is the engine behind all this. So in five years, we are definitely convinced that this league can become one of the absolute best professional basketball leagues in the world, that is going to showcase Africa, and that's going to be an economic growth engine for the continent, creating jobs, showcasing beautiful African cities, and all the talent we see off the court. Q. Africa has been mostly known for exporting talent. Now, since the beginning of the BAL, would you say the continent is able to retain its talent? That was always the goal. One of the things we're most proud of is to showcase talent that was already here, that nobody knew about. I just came from meeting the teams and welcoming them. It's always great to see so many of these familiar faces, players who have played in the league, coming back. Whether they change teams or not, they are still in the league. Young players who emerged, burst onto the scene. You have one here with APR in (Aliou) Diarra who three years ago was with Stade Malien from Mali. No one had heard of him. 21-year-old, played, showcased incredible talent. He was with another young man on the same team, (Souleymane) Berthe. Berthe ended up going at the end of that season to play, I think, for a third division team in France. Diarra stayed and moved to Fus Rabat. He played with another team in the BAL last year, and now he's here playing for APR. For me, these are the stories, these local heroes that we are proud to really showcase, because, for the African child, whether they're from here in Kigali or Nairobi, that story is very real. If they have access to the game and learn the game, they play the game, they have a chance to be part of the local club, win their local championship and play in the Basketball Africa League and be showcased all around the world. So, we are proud to be able to unearth this talent, retain this talent, continue to develop this talent, and then attract top talent from around the world. And by the way, we have so much talent that some can go somewhere else, but we want that if they're going, it's because they're going for better than what we're proposing. So ultimately, we will be much more competitive than we are today in terms of pay across the scale. Q. Speaking of talent, Ulrich Chomche and Khaman Maluach, both players featured at the BAL previously. Chomche is now drafted in the NBA, and Maluach seems to be on his way to the NBA. What does this say about African talent and how does it make you feel? Yes, both of those players come from our Elevate program that we launched at the NBA Academy Africa in 2017 with the intent to make sure that young players from Africa don't have to feel like they have to go somewhere else in order to develop. We are very confident that if we create the enabling environment, the facilities and get the coaching we need, the sports science and everything that comes with recovery and the physio and all that, the talent we have here could get to the highest level. That's what I think was proven with Ulrich Chomche, a young man from Cameroon who came to the academy at age 14, and became the first player to be drafted straight out of Africa. Generally, the other players that made it to the NBA, whether it's Joel Embiid or Pascal Siakam, they all came from some of our grassroots activities that we ran at NBA Africa, mainly basketball without borders, which is still in existence. Those players had to go to school in the U.S. and then universities before they got to the NBA. Joel went to University of Kansas, and Pascal was at New Mexico State. But now that trend is reversed. Maluach is a young player who developed at the NBA Academy, was part of our Elevate program, and played three seasons in the BAL. Now he is at Duke University. Another young player is Rueben Abuchi Chinyelu from Nigeria, who was actually in the same team as Khaman and Ulrich. He also played two seasons in the BAL. He won the NCAA championship just a few weeks ago with the University of Florida. So that talent is there. So I think the academy has shown what can be achieved when you create the opportunity, bring the players and give them the same level of training as the NBA. Q. With whom has the BAL worked together to help it go far? First of all, we partnered with FIBA from the word go, because for us, it wasn't about coming to Africa and saying, ‘hey, we're going to start a closed league and just professional.’ From the word go, we wanted to make sure that what we're doing impacts Africa, impacts the growth of the game across Africa. And we have started seeing the results. The last Basketball World Cup, all the five teams that represented Africa did very well. They won games and a few of them advanced to the next round. We see what South Sudan has done, really showing that it is possible with organisation, with expertise. I think FIBA is obviously the number one partner. Then the world-class partners that we have like Nike, Jordan, or Wilson, but equally for us are RDB and Visit Rwanda. Their partnership has allowed all this to continue to grow, and that was one of our priorities. Q. We understand there are plans to make the BAL a franchise. How far are these plans? I always say that we are always going to look at all possibilities to make this league better every year. So, every year we take stock and reflect at the end of every season to see what we did well and what are the areas of opportunity. So, in the same vein, we're not putting any limit to where we can go. So, obviously, we'll make all necessary tweaks that are designed to put us in the best position to succeed and to achieve our very high ambitions.
