Rugby Africa's Herbert Mensah Joins ACG Advisory Board

7 Sept

**Herbert Mensah** | Image by Ralph Noah

African Collaborations Group (ACG), the London-based platform working to originate bankable sport and entertainment districts across Africa, has appointed Herbert Mensah, President of Rugby Africa, to its Advisory Board. The appointment lands one of African rugby's most internationally connected administrators inside a board ACG is assembling as it tries to convert stalled stadium and venue ambitions into financeable, mixed-use developments.

Mensah has led Rugby Africa since March 2023. In November 2024, at World Rugby's Interim Council Meeting in Dublin, he was elected to the World Rugby Executive Board, one of six regional representatives on the body that sets policy for the global game alongside Chair Brett Robinson and Chief Executive Alan Gilpin. According to ACG, he also chairs the World Rugby Regions Association, the grouping that brings together the presidents of rugby's six continental confederations: Rugby Europe, Asia Rugby, Rugby Americas North, Sudamérica Rugby, Oceania Rugby and Rugby Africa. South Africa remains the reigning World Rugby champion, having won the 2023 Rugby World Cup and holding the title until the next tournament in 2027.

Nicolas Pompigne-Mognard, ACG's Founder and Executive Chairman, said Mensah's standing "in every capital where sport is a serious matter of state" made him a natural fit for the board, calling the appointment "both a privilege and a strategic advantage."

ACG's model is to convene governments, public-private partnership authorities, development finance institutions, private investors, sport federations and infrastructure partners around district-scale projects rather than standalone venues, taking those projects from concept through feasibility, bankability and delivery. The International Finance Corporation has projected that Africa's sport and entertainment economy could nearly double to $20 billion by 2035, a figure ACG cites as the scale of opportunity its origination model is built to capture.

Last week, the group also confirmed Fatma Samoura, FIFA's former Secretary General, as an Advisory Board member, with both additions announced within days of each other. Read together, the two appointments look less like prestige hires and more like ACG deliberately assembling a governance bench ahead of whatever project announcements it plans next. A platform that wants development finance institutions and national governments to treat a sport district as a bankable infrastructure asset.

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