- Algeria has pulled out of the race to host AFCON 2025 & 2027
- Morocco becomes red-hot favorite to host the 2025 tournament
- The CAF EXcom will announce the next two hosts nations on Wednesday
The Algerian football federation (FAF) has pulled out if the race to host the 2025 and 2027 TotalEnergies Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) due to an undisclosed reason.
According to Dzfoot.com, FAF officials received instructions from the Algerian government wrote to CAF over the weekend to inform them of its new position barely two days before the announcement of the next two hosts.
“This withdrawal can be explained by a new approach from the FAF related to its strategy for developing football in Algeria,” the federation statement read.
Though reasons behind the move are not clear, a school of thought has it that they are avoiding the humiliation of losing the bid to other Nations.
The decision to withdraw their bid leaves Zambia, plus a joint bid from Benin and Nigeria in contention for the 2025 event whose host right was stripped off Guinea over a year ago.
There are reports that the Nigeria bid will be withdrawn though there hasn’t been any official statement to that effect.
Algeria last hosted the AFCON in 1990 and throughout the ongoing bidding process they were seen as the main rival to Morocco’s quest to receive the continent in 2025.
On its part, the 2027 tournament which Algeria also pulled out of the race has received bids from Botswana, Egypt and a trinity bid from Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda.
CAF experts have made a number of stops at the different nations bidding for the various editions of the prestigious soccer jamboree. Their report will guide the Executive Committee members in arriving at their final decisions.
CAF will announce the hosts of the 2025 and 2027 AFCON this Wednesday, September 27.
CAF president, Dr Patrice Motsepe is expected to reveal the designated competition hosts for the next two editions after an Executive Committee voting process during a meeting this Wednesday.
Executive 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.
Sources also have it that Morocco will be picked as host of the 2025 event.
At least three editions of the biennial tournament have been affected by logistics and other factors in the past ten years.
The 2013 event that was initially scheduled to take place in Libya ended up in South Africa, while the 2015 showpiece was moved from Morocco to Equatorial Guinea, owing to the outbreak of Ebola virus disease.
Cameroon’s 2019 edition was first moved to Egypt, and even when the competition returned in 2021, CAF was forced to be rescheduled to January 2022 due to the Covid-19 pandemic outbreak
The 2023 edition of the AFCON will be played next year in Côte D’Ivoire.
Everything being equal, from the West African nation, the competition will head to Morocco, Senegal before returning to Nigeria for the first time since 2000 as a joint host with Benin – a mirror of the 2000 frenzy.
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