Bani Gansè

Banikoara's mayor, Bio Sarako Tamou, answered it by buying the professional licence of Racing Club de Covè in 2022 and moving it north, in his own name as club president.

The team took the licence's place in the Championnat National for the 2022–2023 season and finished 13th on debut. Green and white, and a nickname, "Les Chasseurs" — the hunters — that belongs to the town more than to the club: Banikoara has long styled itself Benin's hunting country.

Ibrahim da Silva coached the side through its first two seasons, the period in which it established itself as more than a makeshift top-flight entry. By 2024–2025 Bani Gansè had gone from newcomer to provisional pace-setter, leading the table in the competition's early rounds. Moussa Corso Traoré, a Guinean forward, gave the club its first individual mark on the league: 19 goals in 2023–2024, enough to finish top scorer and be named the season's best foreign player.

No league title has followed, and no Coupe du Bénin. What Bani Gansè has instead is the fact of its own presence in the Super Ligue Pro — a club that did not climb there through decades of lower divisions but was assembled in a single year to put a town's name on the fixture list.