China-sponsored gaming tournament paves African youth’s path to global stage

NAIROBI, Sept. 16 (Xinhua/GNA) — The African mobile gaming tournament, featuring 16 teams from across the continent, concluded on Sunday evening in

Nairobi, Kenya’s capital, with a South African PUBG team taking the top spot.

The two-day PUBG Mobile Africa Cup (PMAC) 2025 Finals, which aimed to select Africa’s representative for the PUBG Mobile Global Championship 2025

scheduled for November in Thailand, was organized by Chinese technology company Tencent, the Esports Kenya Federation and Chinese mobile company

Infinix.

Brian Gu, head of the PUBG Mobile Africa, said the goal of the tournament was to raise the profile of Africa-based esports players on the global

stage.

“We want to use this platform to grow the esports ecosystem in Africa so that players from the continent, can also become professionals in the

sport,” Gu said.

Ronny Lusigi, president of the Esports Kenya Federation, said the PMAC 2025 Finals received more than 10,000 individual registrations, the highest

ever recorded in the history of African esports tournaments. He added that the event highlighted the growing importance of gaming in Africa, with Kenya

alone having about 300,000 active PUBG Mobile players.

According to Lusigi, the top team was awarded a cash prize of 2,000 U.S. dollars, while the second-place team took home 1,400 dollars and the third-

place team received 1,000 dollars.

Richard Henry, a member of X Force Rejects, the South Africa-based team that emerged as the overall winner, said their victory was the result of hard

work and long hours of training. The 21-year-old student at South Africa’s University of Port Elizabeth thanked the organizers for providing African

players with an opportunity to showcase their talents on the global stage.

For Lugony Yaadav, a member of Rejects X, a team from Mauritius that finished second, the tournament was also about building connections. He said it

gave him the chance to interact with gamers from across the continent and motivated him to further develop his esports skills.
GNA