Esports teams, leagues and competitions are flourishing, but poor connectivity and rarity of Africa-based servers are hampering expansion

On a recent Sunday afternoon in an upmarket neighbourhood of Nairobi, Daniel Badu was rapidly pressing the screen of his mobile phone, headphones wrapped around his head, his elbows resting on a pillow.

Badu and his four teammates in the Aura 233 team, all decked in black-and-yellow kits and representing Ghana, were taking on Kenya’s Delta eSports in the finals of the inaugural Carry1st Africa Cup, a continental tournament for the first-person shooter video game Call of Duty: Mobile.