As Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania have been selected as the tournament’s co-hosts for 2027, Nigeria and the Benin Republic have lost their joint bid to host the African Cup of Nations.
This comes after Senator John Owan Enoh, the Minister of Sports Development, and representatives of the Nigeria Football Federation traveled to Egypt on September 26 in order to submit a bid to host the AFCON in 2027.
Also revealed by the Confederation of African Football (CAF) is that Morocco will host the 2025 competition.
The AFCON was last hosted by Morocco in 1988, and the country was chosen to host the event in 2015.
However, Morocco requested that the competition be postponed due to the Ebola virus, and CAF ultimately decided to revoke Morocco’s hosting rights.
Following Algeria’s withdrawal from consideration to host the Africa Cup of Nations in 2025 or 2027, this has happened.
By withdrawing its bids to host the Africa Cup of Nations in 2025 and 2027, the FAF, according to a statement, “sent a letter to the Confederation of African Football (CAF) informing it of its decision.”.
For the right to host the 2025 tournament, Algeria had to contend with its neighbor to the north, Morocco, Zambia, and a joint bid from Nigeria and Benin.
This withdrawal “can be explained by a new approach from the FAF (Algerian Football Federation) related to its strategy for developing football in Algeria,” it said.
After receiving approval from the CAF executive committee, the joint bid from Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania brought the biennial competition back to East Africa for the first time since the 1976 finals were held in Ethiopia.
Patrice Motsepe, the president of the CAF, announced the winners in Cairo and declared, “I am very proud of Morocco.”.
Algeria, Zambia, and Nigeria-Benin, which were Morocco’s rivals for the 2025 tournament, “announced their withdrawal,” he said.
Together with Spain and Portugal, Motsepe said, “the main reason is to support Morocco in its candidacy for the 2030 World Cup.”.
Morocco is home to a number of top-notch stadiums and has successfully hosted numerous African and international football competitions.
The lack of international-standard venues in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda, however, forced their national teams to compete in 2023 Cup of Nations qualifiers at neutral sites.
One of the main goals, according to Motsepe, is for the decision made today to “promote” the construction of stadiums and other infrastructure and to inspire young people.
Currently, only five or six of the 54 CAF members are eligible to apply to host the African Cup.
As a result, it won’t be possible to make this change, he said.
The 2023 Cup of Nations will take place in Ivory Coast; however, due to the rainy season in west Africa, the event has been postponed to January and February 2024.
The tournament taking place in the middle of the European club season, according to Motsepe, “is not ideal timing.”.
The South African billionaire, who was chosen to lead CAF in 2021, continued, “But we could not risk the tournament being halted by bad weather.”.
