On the beach of Petit-Mbao, in the great suburbs of Dakar, a crowd forms at nightfall around a rectangular arena delimited by barriers. Inside, eight wrestlers dance to the rhythm of the percussions: sabars, djembes and dum-dum. They’re preparing the opening ceremony for the next big fight. Scheduled for Sunday April 4, the symbolic date of Senegal’s independence, it will pit the famous wrestler Lac 2 against another star, Eumeu Sène, leader of the Tayshinger team.
Young people and children exclaim when the latter, a colossus of 120 kg, bracelet hanging from the ankle, arrives in the training area. Torsos naked and dressed in a simple cloth loincloth, the wrestlers grapple with their bare hands in an attempt to fall. Sweat streams down their protruding muscles covered in sand.
Here, it is not recommended to take photos or film. “Wrestling is a mystical sport, preparation is not just physical. The wrestler must for example wear gris-gris or avoid meeting women, it all depends on what his marabout tells him ”, explains Latif Gomis, general secretary of the team. Thus, it is impossible to approach Eumeu Sene before the big fight: he must be avoided any risk of seeing himself cast a bad spell.
The “King of the Arena”
His house, a few meters from the beach where he trains, is surrounded by barriers and protected by imposing bodyguards. No one outside the stable and its staff should enter inside. A device as strict as the stakes of the next big fight are important. If he wins, Eumeu Sene could have a chance to regain his title of “King of the arenas”, conquered in 2018 and lost the following year.
This fight will be the first large-scale organized since the end of competitions in March 2020 because of the Covid-19 pandemic. The lifting of the state of health emergency on March 19 allowed the arenas to reopen. A relief for the 8,000 wrestlers affiliated with the National Wrestling Association, deprived of tournaments and collective training, and therefore of income, for a year.
Blue loincloth tied around the waist, Ngarafe Ndiaye, nicknamed “Son of Sadio”, says he had to rely on the sale of telephones to be able to get by. “Fortunately, I was also able to count on the solidarity of the great wrestlers in my team”, he adds. The young hope won the opening fight at the national arena in Pikine, a suburb of Dakar, on the weekend of March 27.
During these duels, wrestlers of his level can receive between 400,000 and 500,000 CFA francs (from 600 to 760 euros). But the fees of the greatest sportsmen sometimes amount to 50 million CFA francs (76,200 euros) in a single evening.
Potential future cash flow reassuring Khalifa Niang, president of Tayshinger. “The team receives around 5% of the wrestler’s fee, the manager takes 10%. It is scalable according to the amounts “, he explains. Without a fight, 2020 was therefore complicated. “The state has forgotten us. He should not help individual wrestlers but go through the stables and schools because we are organized ”, he claims, stressing that the struggle, extremely popular in Senegal, is an economic sector in its own right.
Sponsors and television broadcasting
It was Gaston Mbengue, the country’s most important wrestling promoter, who organized the big fight on April 4. “A challenge in the midst of a pandemic. We have to make sure that the barrier measures are respected. We are therefore going to fill the stands to 50% of their capacity, with an audience reduced from 20,000 to 10,000 people ”, indicates the businessman, claiming that “Health is more important than the financial aspect”.
He is counting on sponsors to bear most of the cost of this fight, which he estimates at 200 million CFA francs (nearly 305,000 euros). Usually “They rush towards us” because “Wrestling is the first sport in the country”, underlines Mr. Mbengue. Moreover, the craze is already there and Sunday’s event is announced with a lot of advertising panels in the main arteries of Dakar. The other source of income comes from live broadcast on two Senegalese national channels. “Outside Senegal, you will have to go through a pay-per-view [télévision à la carte], because we cannot give everything for free ”, explains the businessman.
With the bleachers only half occupied, profitability will not necessarily be there. “But it’s better than nothing… Two months ago, we were ready to open in camera! “exclaims Ibrahima Sène, the president of the National Wrestling Management Committee (CNG), the institution whose role is to supervise and develop the Senegalese struggle.
He ensures that the level of wrestlers has not dropped during the pandemic. “The athletes continued to train as they hoped for an imminent recovery. Like warriors, they had to be ready at all times ”, continues the manager who is working on a professionalization of this sport. In the hope that he will one day appear at the Olympics.