Countries favourites to be voted for 2025 and 2027 editions, respectively
\nJOHANNESBURG
\nMorocco and Algeria are favoured to be named hosts of the 2025 and 2027 Africa Cup of Nations tournaments respectively, with an announcement to be made in Cairo on Wednesday. Both are seeking to stage the 2025 edition of the premier African sport event, along with Zambia and a joint Nigeria-Benin bid.
\nAlgeria also entered the 2027 contest, as did Botswana, Egypt, Senegal and a combined Kenya-Tanzania-Uganda challenge.
\nAfter a number of deadlines passed without the hosts being revealed, a senior African Football Confederation (CAF) official told AFP \u201cthe two hosts will definitely be named on September 27\u201d.
\nExecutive committee members will vote after studying independent appraisals of each 2025 and 2027 candidate, but politics and a promise of regional rotation have complicated matters.
\nNorth African neighbours Algeria and Morocco have an adversarial political relationship, which entered the football arena this year.
\nA ban on Moroccan aircraft flying over Algeria led to the withdrawal of the team representing the kingdom from the 2022\/2023 African Nations Championship (CHAN) for home-based players.
\nMorocco had won the previous two editions and when their request to fly directly to Algeria was denied, they boycotted the tournament, robbing it of one of the title favourites.
\nBoth countries boast superb stadia and infrastructure and football-loving populations, and are capable of delivering world-class Cup of Nations tournaments.
\nBut both would like to be the 2025 hosts with leading Moroccan and CAF official Fouzi Lekjaa causing a mid-year stir when he told local politicians that the kingdom would be chosen.
\nDomestic media quoted him saying \u201cthe Fes stadium will have the honour of hosting CAN (Cup of Nations) 2025 matches when Morocco wins the organisation\u201d.
\nCAF president and South African billionaire Patrice Motsepe is acutely aware of the political rivalry between the neighbours. \u201cWe must not get involved in what is happening between Algeria and Morocco. CAF should never intervene in politics,\u201d he said during the CHAN tournament.
\nMotsepe has hailed the organisational abilities of both countries, who have each staged the Cup of Nations once with Morocco doing so in 1988 and Algeria two years later.
\n\u201cMorocco has often flawlessly hosted major competitions while the CHAN in Algeria this year was the best ever,\u201d he said.
\nDuring the CHAN, Motsepe said he wanted each region to host the Cup of Nations: \u201cWe cannot assign the organisation of the CAN successively to the same region.\u201d
\nHowever, several months later, CAF secretary general Veron Mosengo-Omba said regional rotation may not always be possible.
\n\u201cToday, only five or six countries out of the 54 CAF members are able to apply to host the African Cup. Consequently, it will not be possible to make this alternation,\u201d he said.
\nWhat began in 1957 as a three-team tournament is now a 24-nation event featuring stars such as Mohamed Salah, Victor Osimhen, Andre Onana, Sadio Mane and Hakim Ziyech.
\nHosts must have a minimum of six stadiums \u2013 two with a capacity of at least 40,000 and four able to accommodate 20,000 or more spectators.
\nThe Ivory Coast will stage the 2023\/2024 Cup of Nations, which has been postponed from June and July this year to January and February next year to avoid the rainy season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Countries favourites to be voted for 2025 and 2027 editions, respectively JOHANNESBURG Morocco and Algeria are favoured to be named hosts of the 2025 and 2027 Africa Cup of Nations tournaments respectively, with an announcement to be made in Cairo on Wednesday. Both are seeking to stage the 2025 edition of the premier African sport […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":358595,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-358582","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports"},"yoast_head":"\n