During AFCON, a single ticketing platform or live statistics dashboard will be simultaneously accessed by a fan in Cairo reading in Arabic, a journalist in Dakar browsing in French, and a broadcaster in Lagos working in English.
If the website's layout breaks when the language toggles, the brand's credibility shatters with it. At a continental scale, your front-end code is your brand identity.
The Nightmare of Retrofitting RTL
The most common mistake I see in event branding is designing a beautiful interface in English (Left-To-Right) and then treating the Arabic translation (Right-To-Left) as an afterthought.
You cannot simply mirror a stylesheet and expect it to work. True multilingual digital architecture requires planning from the very first line of CSS. When I architect digital platforms, I know that interactive elements—like touch-enabled Swiper sliders for player highlights—must be custom-coded to feel intuitive regardless of the directional flow.
If a user swipes left to see the next goal highlight, but the Arabic interface is forcing the array in the opposite direction, you create instant user frustration. As I explained in Branding Is a System, Not a Logo, these structural decisions are what actually define a brand in the wild. Consistency in the code matters just as much as consistency in your color palette.
Typography as Infrastructure
Handling three dominant languages also means handling drastically different typographic heights and spacing. Arabic script is inherently taller and requires more vertical breathing room than Latin script.
If you use a rigid grid system designed only for English, the Arabic text will either be squeezed to the point of illegibility or it will break the container entirely. A flexible, scalable typographic system ensures that the CAF brand feels premium and deliberate in every single nation.
Conclusion: Code for the Continent
When you are building a digital experience for an event of this magnitude, the stakes are incredibly high. The brand system has to be bulletproof.
If you want to host a world-class tournament, you need a world-class digital infrastructure. Anything less is a disservice to the fans.
Logos look good on jerseys.
Architecture keeps the servers running.
Design for the language, not just the look.
