Graduation ceremony in Senegal
The Université Cheikh Anta Diop (UCAD) and the Institut National Supérieur de l'Éducation Populaire et du Sport (INSEPS) celebrated the 18th edition of the FIFA/CIES International Programme in Sports Management on Saturday 7 December 2024 at the Khaly Amar Fall auditorium in Dakar.
Thirty-one students successfully completed the UCAD/FIFA/CIES International Programme. Comprising six modules (management, finance, law, marketing, event management and communication), the course is rounded off by contributions from international speakers who are experts in the sports industry. According to the Director of INSEPS, Professor Souleymane Diallo, this special feature is ‘attracting a great deal of interest throughout sub-Saharan Africa’.
At the suggestion of the students, Mayacine Mar, retired teacher-researcher at INSEPS and National Technical Director of the Senegalese Football Federation, was asked to be Patron of the 18th edition. This choice no doubt explains the massive presence of the Senegalese sporting world, and football in particular, at the event. Among the participants were former international players, as well as the interim coach of the men's national team, Pape Thiaw, and Mamadou Koumé, honorary president of the Association Nationale de la Presse Sportive (ANPS).
Mansour Ndoye, spokesman for the graduating class, promised that he and his fellow students would now embody the qualities of their brilliant Patron. They also declared that the ceremony marked a new beginning. ‘We know that this diploma is not an open guarantee of success, but instead a springboard for the future. So, we're going to seize the opportunities that come our way and think outside the box’.
Professor Mame Samba Mbaye, representative of the interim Rector, then invited the students to assume their future responsibilities, ‘while respecting the rules of ethics and deontology so dear to sport, and so important in life itself’.
At the end of the ceremony, the graduates presented the traditional scarf to their ‘cadets’ of the next 19th edition, wishing them luck and success in their future studies.
