Does Little League Baseball Make it Difficult for African Teams to Participate in the Little League World Series?

At Little League's 2016 Europe-Africa Regional Tournament––the tournament to see which team would represent the region at the World Series in Williamsport, broadcast on ESPN––the following teams competed: Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Croatia, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Lithuania, Netherlands, Spain, United Kingdom, and Ukraine.

You may notice that none of these countries are in Africa. In fact, there has only been one African country ever to have competed at the Little League Europe-Africa Regional Tournament in Kutno, Poland, since Little League combined Africa with Europe in 2013, and that country is Uganda. The Ugandan team from the AVRS School, a boarding school outside Kampala, blazed through the 2015 Europe-Africa Tournament, outscoring opponents 67-2 in the tournament's five games, then going on to Williamsport, where they won their first game at the World Series against the Dominican Republic and became fast darlings of the ESPN coverage.

Uganda's conspicuous absence from this year's tournament is due to several factors that highlight the challenges facing Little League programs in Africa, and asks the question of how committed Little League really is to having Africa represented in Williamsport and growing the sport on the continent in general.

Firstly, it is ridiculously expensive for teams from Africa to go to Poland to play in the regional tournament. According to Richard Stanley, who founded the AVRS School and runs the Ugandan Little League, it costs about $35,000—between travel tickets and visas—for a team to play in Poland. This cost deters pretty much any other African Little League program, like those in South Africa, Kenya, Tanzania, and other countries, from participating. Little League even says so itself. A spokesperson for Little League International, when asked about the lack of African representation in Williamsport and at the regional tournament, said, "In general, over the years, due to the process and expense of travel to Kutno and obtaining visas to participate in the Little League Baseball Europe & Africa Region Tournament, many leagues in Africa choose to play locally, within their country."

Uganda has only been able to overcome this cost in the past because Stanley, who is from New Jersey and worked at Proctor & Gamble for many years, has the wealth to cover it.

However this past season, Little League ruled that the AVRS School could no longer compete in Little League International competitions, saying via email to VICE Sports, "It has been determined that athletic ability is a central criteria for admission to the school."

Stanley responded to this claim via email claiming that Little League has known that his school selects kids based on both academic and athletic ability since the founding of the school in 2013. He questions why this suddenly became the ruling now. The school's mission statement, available online, says clearly that the school's goal is to develop kids academically and athletically so they can earn college scholarships to continue their educations. He also pointed out that, under Little League's new ruling, if these kids want to continue to play Little League with the opportunity to leave Uganda and travel to Europe and the United States, they would have to leave a free boarding school and go back to their homes throughout the country that––even if they have Little League programs––have less academic opportunity.

And yet, none of these reasons explain why Africa was not represented in Williamsport or Poland. The AVRS School didn't even win this year's Uganda tournament. The team that won was a new team, coached by a Ugandan man named Okello Benard. And according to Stanley, when they won, the $35,000 to play in Poland was not going to be paid by Stanley himself, but by the office of the Ugandan president, which speaks to the national pride in seeing a team represented at Williamsport. But that team was not able to play at the regional tournament in Poland because, as explained by both Stanley and the Little League spokesperson, in the process of getting their visas—which required an invitation from their hosts in Poland (Little League International)—they were told by Little League that their team was not an officially chartered team. Therefore, they were not eligible to compete at the regional tournament.

Stanley, as league director, admits that they had not submitted the charter for Benard's team. But he says it was because he had planned on giving it in person to Dan Velte of Little League International when Velte was expected to make his first in-person visit to Uganda in May of this year. However, that visit was suddenly cancelled at the last minute. Stanley says Velte agreed to another in-person delivery when Stanley returned stateside in June, but he received an email from Velte four weeks after the arrangement, informing him that the necessary invitations for the visas would not be forthcoming. So, thanks to bureaucratic barriers, the kids who had done what was asked of them to have the opportunity to play in Europe and possibly the United States were left at home in Uganda.