August 1 – Whilst speculation intensifies over Cameroon’s ability to stage the 2019 African Cup of Nations without co-hosting, the Ivory Coast says it intends to go it alone for the 2021 finals.
The country is one of the few on the Continent with the facilities to stage an expanded tournament following the decision to move from 16 to 24 teams and its president Alassane Ouattara says they will do just that.
Like Cameroon, Ivory Coast thought they would be staging a 16-team event but have no qualms about working with eight more.
“The reality is that we go by the decision made to extend the number of teams to participate at Afcon and Ivory Coast has the infrastructure,” Ouattara said. “A few days ago we hosted the Francophone games with 4,000 athletes participating from 54 countries.”
“We are going to continue between now and 2021 to build the necessary infrastructure to host the finals.”
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