Scrabble featuring in African Games, a dream come true, says PANASA President

The President of the Pan African Scrabble Association, PANASA Adekoyego Adegbesan, has described the debut of Scrabble as a sports at the ongoing African Games as a fulfillment of a dream.

The President elated about the grand entry, however, alluded it was not a stroll in the pack before the mind game was accepted as a demonstration sport by the orgainsing body.

“We made history today by having scrabble in the African Games. By this time last year, we weren’t a sport in the African Games.

“We had a couple of meetings with the Minister in Ghana, and somehow we found ourselves in the games, and it has been a bumpy ride. 

“We have been pulled out at several points in time after several committee meetings, brought back, but finally, we play the first tile of the scrabble game at the African Games.

“It is a dream come through. It is one of the things I wanted to achieve as the President, and to achieve it with this time gives great feeling,” he said.

The President revealed that moves will begin to ensure Scrabble becomes a competitive sport at the commonwealth games.

“We think it is more difficult to get to African Games than to get to the Commonwealth because it  is restricted to English countries, but African Games is a combination of both French and English.

“So for us to break that barrier in African Games, it makes our stories easy to tell when we make our case to the commonwealth.

“We are going to document what has happened here, and we will make a good report to ensure that scrabble is looked at differently as a competitive sport,” he concluded.