Pétanque in Seychelles

Seychelles occupies an unusual dual position in world pétanque: the Indian Ocean archipelago was a founding member of the sport's Asian confederation in 1997, yet today competes internationally through the African confederation alongside its regional neighbors. Its clearest result on the multi-sport stage came at the 2023 Indian Ocean Island Games, where a Seychellois trio took bronze in men's triples.

Governance and Confederation Status

Pétanque in Seychelles is organized under the Seychelles Petanque Association, the country's national governing body for the sport. Seychelles holds a distinctive dual confederation history: it was one of the founding members of the Asian Petanque and Sports Boules Confederation (APSBC) when that body formed in 1997, alongside Cambodia, Israel, Japan, Laos, Malaysia, Mauritius, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. In practice, however, Seychelles' competitive activity today runs through the African Confederation of Boules Sports (CASB), one of roughly two dozen national federations affiliated with the FIPJP on the African continent alongside regional rivals such as Mauritius, Madagascar, and Comoros. That confederation's structure has been disputed since January 2025, when a faction of federations met at a rival Dakar congress - convened, per CASB's own arbitration filing, at FIPJP's instigation - to establish the Confédération Africaine de Sport Pétanque (CASP) as a parallel body; a May 21, 2026 Court of Arbitration for Sport ruling annulled FIPJP's withdrawal of recognition from the original CASB leadership, though CASP held its own elective general assembly two days later, on 23 May 2026 in Abidjan, where Mahmoud Archane - the outgoing president of Morocco's Fédération Royale Marocaine de Pétanque - was elected CASP president unanimously as the sole candidate, receiving all 19 votes cast by the member-federation representatives present, succeeding interim president Louly Mohamed Lemine after outgoing president Brahim Darwich of Senegal resigned; CASB, meanwhile, remains under its long-serving president, Idrissou Ibrahima of Benin. The two bodies remain split as of September 2026, with no public sign of reconciliation.

Indian Ocean Island Games: Bronze in Triples

Seychelles' most notable pétanque result came at the 11th Jeux des Îles de l'Océan Indien (Indian Ocean Island Games), held in Antananarivo, Madagascar from 24 August to 3 September 2023. Pétanque was one of 17 sporting disciplines on the program, contested by seven participating delegations: Madagascar, La Réunion, Seychelles, the Maldives, Comoros, Mayotte, and Mauritius. In the men's triples event, the Seychellois team of Joseph Sinon, Fabien Chang-Time, and Roy Meriton won the bronze medal, giving the archipelago a podium finish in a sport dominated at those Games by host nation Madagascar. Across all sports at the 2023 Games, Team Seychelles finished fourth overall in the medal count with 84 medals, underlining the island nation's broader sporting depth even though pétanque itself remains a comparatively small program.

Zone 4 African Championship: Absent from the Inaugural Edition

Seychelles is one of six member federations of Zone 4 (Indian Ocean), a CASB/CASP sub-regional grouping alongside Madagascar, Mauritius, Djibouti, Comoros, and Kenya. When the zone held its inaugural African Championship at the national boulodrome in Souillac, Mauritius from 27 April to 3 May 2026, only three of the six member federations sent delegations - host Mauritius, Madagascar, and Djibouti - while Seychelles, Comoros, and Kenya were absent. We could not independently verify a reason for Seychelles' absence.

Federation Contact

The Seychelles Petanque Association's own record in the FIPJP's official national-federation database gives a founding and FIPJP-membership date of 1996, a postal address of P.O. Box 580, Victoria, Mahe, Seychelles, a phone number of +248 32 39 08, a fax number of +248 32 40 66, an email of seychelles@fipjp.com, and lists Mrs Marie-May Savy as president, with correspondence directed to the federation's registered office. This is the only public record of the association's leadership we could independently confirm; no separate federation website or social media presence could be found.

National Competition Calendar

The Seychelles Petanque Association runs a domestic league at its La Promenade boulodrome. Its most recently documented fixture is the Petanque Open Doublette Tournament, reported by the Seychelles Nation on 11 November 2025 as having been held "on Sunday" (the article does not state the exact calendar date, most likely 9 November 2025). Seven teams entered the league-based competition - four local Seychellois teams plus three teams of Malagasy players working in Seychelles - and the Malagasy duo Tsu and Zoz took the title, losing only one match all tournament, an 11-13 defeat to another Malagasy pair, Ando and Hery.

The Seychellois Pétanque Scene

Organized competitive pétanque in Seychelles remains modest in scale compared to larger Indian Ocean rivals like Madagascar and Mauritius, and we could not independently verify further detail on the Seychelles Petanque Association's founding date, leadership, or broader domestic club structure beyond the La Promenade league documented above. The country's regional profile is nonetheless real: as a dual APSBC and CASB member with a podium result at the 2023 Indian Ocean Island Games, Seychelles sits among the smaller but active pétanque nations of the Indian Ocean, with the next edition of the Games - hosted by Comoros in 2027 - offering a further opportunity to build on that result.