For the next three weeks, Africa’s finest footballers will assembly in Egypt to battle it our for the bragging right in the 32nd edition of the Africa Cup of Nations beginning this evening at 8:00pm local time.
The tournament will be hosted by Egypt. The competition will be held from 21 June to 19 July 2019, as per the decision of the CAF Executive Committee on 20 July 2017 to move the Africa Cup of Nations from January/February to June/July for the first time. It will also be the first Africa Cup of Nations expanded from 16 to 24 teams.
The tournament was initially scheduled to be hosted by Cameroon. Cameroon would have hosted the competition for the first time since 1972.
They were also the title holders after winning the previous edition. On 30 November 2018, Cameroon was stripped of hosting the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations due to delays in the delivery of infrastructure, the Boko Haram insurgency and the Anglophone Crisis.
On 8 January 2019, Egypt was chosen by the CAF Executive Committee as the host nation of the competition. The tournament has also been moved from the original dates of 15 June – 13 July to 21 June – 19 July due to Ramadan. Cameroon are the title holders.
This list was different from the list of the host nation bids for both the 2019 and 2021 edition of the Cup of Nations as announced by CAF in November 2013, with Gabon also on the original list, but Cameroon not on it. Among the six official candidates, Algeria, Guinea and Ivory Coast also bid for hosting the 2021 Africa Cup of Nations.
Democratic Republic of the Congo had originally put themselves forward as host candidates but withdrew in July 2014. Security concerns and threats from various militant groups particularly in the eastern part of the country were an early issue with a Congolese bid.
Before bidding solo Guinea was part of a four-way joint bid with Guinea-Bissau, Sierra Leone and Liberia, similarly Zambia was originally part of a joint bid with Malawi and Zimbabwe. Other nations who expressed early interest in hosting were 2013 champions Nigeria, Senegal, and a joint bid of Kenya and Uganda.
The decision of the host country was postponed from early 2014 to grant each bidding country adequate time to receive the inspection delegation. After the final vote at the CAF Executive Committee meeting, on 20 September 2014, the CAF announced the hosts for the 2019, 2021 and 2023 AFCON tournaments: 2019 to Cameroon, 2021 to Ivory Coast, and 2023 to Guinea
Information from Wikipedia was also used in this report.
Source: www.Ghgosisp.com
