By Andrew Warshaw
August 9 – After maintaining a discreet silence while his country’s credentials for hosting the 2019 African Nations Cup were constantly called into question, former African football chief Issa Hayatou has lashed out at comments made by his successor, Ahmad Ahmad, over Cameroon’s readiness to stage an expanded 24-team event.
Ahmad, who upset Hayatou to win the Confederation of African Football (CAF) presidential election in March, said at the weekend that Cameroon, reigning African champions, “will have to work to convince CAF” that it has the required facilities to cope with eight more participants.
Cameroon officials are understandably crying foul at CAF’s decision to impose the new format straight away when they had always been led to believe they would be hosting 16 finalists and Hayatou says Ahmad should have held off until after a CAF inspection team visits the country later this month.
Ahmad says the inspection visit from 20-28 August will not be carried out by Caf Executive Committee officials, as has happened in the past, but outside experts whom he has not identified.
Hayatou is suspicious about this.
“The unpreparedness of Cameroon cannot be judged two years before the competition,” Hayatou, FIFA’s one-time most senior vice-president, told a Cameroonian radio station. “There is an undertone when the CAF president talks about an independent evaluation team. This is worrying.”
“Today we have five stadia; three stadia, Limbe, Yaoundé and Bafoussam ready to host the competition with two others, Douala and Garoua under rehabilitation. We are moving forward. Ahmad Ahmad is supposed to consult before talking. He has to first come to see before speaking as he did.”
In recent weeks, Morocco has made no secret of its desire to step in as possible replacement hosts while Egypt is rumoured to be another possibility.
Like Hayatou, Cameroon’s football federation Fecafoot is also concerned by Ahmad’s comments noting them “with profound disquiet”.
“One may question the rationale of this inspection visit as the outcome seems to have already been decided at the highest level of CAF,” charged Fecafoot president Tombi A Roko Sidiki.
“In the light of the statement by the CAF president, it is difficult not to pay attention to persistent rumours of a conspiracy intended to withdraw the 2019 Nations Cup hosting from Cameroon (and hand it) to another country.”
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