Pétanque in Zambia

Zambia appears on multiple published rosters of national federations affiliated with the Confédération Africaine des Sports Boules (CASB), alongside around two dozen other African federations including Senegal, Mauritius, Gabon, and Libya. The confederation's structure has been disputed since January 2025, when a rival congress in Dakar - convened, per CASB's own arbitration filing, at FIPJP's instigation - established 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. Beyond that roster listing, we could not independently verify an active domestic pétanque federation, a named president, a club network, or a competition result for a Zambian team.

What We Could Verify

Zambia's presence on the CASB/CASP affiliated-federations list is corroborated across several independent press and reference sources reporting the confederation's roughly 24-member roster. The National Olympic Committee of Zambia, which administers the country's Olympic, Commonwealth, and All-Africa Games representation, does not list a boules or pétanque federation among the national sports bodies we were able to check. We also found no FIPJP national-federation record of the kind published for other African nations, no named federation official, and no press coverage of a Zambian team or player competing at an African or World Championship.

Why the Gap

This pattern - a nominal seat in the continental confederation without a visible domestic competition structure - mirrors what we've found for other smaller CASB/CASP members (see Djibouti for a comparable case with more evidence of grassroots play, or Palau for a similar gap in a different confederation). It's possible organized pétanque exists in Zambia through informal expatriate or diaspora play, similar to its origins in several neighboring countries, without yet having a documented federation presence online.

We will update this page as soon as we can verify a federation, club, or competition record for Zambia from a citable primary source.