October 27 – The Confederation of African Football (CAF) has re-opened the bidding process for the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations after recently stripping Guinea of the tournament hosting rights.
In a statement on Wednesday, CAF confirmed that it reopened the bidding process for the 2025 tournament, writing: “CAF today sent a notice to the Member Associations to express their interest in hosting the AFCON 2025 including the process that will be followed in the selection of the host country or countries.”
CAF marked December 16 as the deadline day for submitting bids and will appoint a new host in February next year.
The confederation removed Guinea as hosts because it believes the country won’t be ready to organise the competition.
“I visited Guinea out of respect to the people of Guinea to discuss CAF’s willingness to advise and work together with the football stakeholders to construct and build football infrastructure and facilities in this country, in the light of the decision by CAF not to proceed with the AFCON 2025 in Guinea,” said CAF president Patrice Motsepe in a statement at the time.
The country suffered a coup one year ago when special forces commander Doumbouya ousted President Alpha Conde and, as one of the poorest countries in Africa, it was always questionable if Guinea would be able to stage a 24-team finals.
The new bidding process is another indictment of CAF’s tournament operations and how the governing body has bungled recent finals.
The 2021 edition of the tournament in Cameroon was overshadowed by the death of eight fans at the hosts’ quarter-final match. The West African country had been supposed to stage the tournament in 2019 but CAF shifted that year’s finals to Egypt at the eleventh hour because it deemed Cameroon not ready to organise the competition.
The 2023 finals were due to be staged in Ivory Coast but the June-July window coincides with inclement weather and heavy rains in the country and CAF has moved the tournament to January 2024.
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