AFCON 2019:Algeria expresses readiness to host as fresh dark cloud hovers over Cameroon

By Mua Patrick in Yaounde

Fresh threats to Cameroon’s hosting right of the 2019 Africa cup of nations, AFCON, have emerged as north African nation, Algeria, has said it will readily step in should the confederation of African football, CAF, revoke the opportunity from Cameroon.

The announcement about Algeria’s readiness to step in to replace Cameroon as hosts of the 32^nd edition of the AFCON was made over the weekend by the Algeria football association president, Kheïreddine Zetchi, we gathered.

“We are following with rapt attention developments with regards to a possible withdrawal of the 2019 AFCON hosting right from Cameroon. 

If such a scenario were to occur, Algeria will very much be ready to present its candidature to host the event” the Algeria FA boss was quoted as saying during a press conference on Saturday.

Algeria, it would be recalled, is one of the countries that lost their bid to host the 2019 AFCON to Cameroon when host rights for the 2019, 2021 and 2023 tournaments, were awarded by the continental football governing body in 2014.

The development, it should be pointed out, comes on the heels of wide and consistent speculations and fears that the reigning African champions, Cameroon, could lose their chance of hosting Africa’s biggest football jamboree. 

Cameroon first hosted the tourney in 1972 when it was in an eight-team format.

Such fears about a possible withdrawal of Cameroon’s hosting right, follow recent agitations by some top CAF officials who have been questioning the procedure for the award of the tournament to Cameroon and two other francophone African countries as well as the disturbing slow pace of work on projects which are being executed in relation to the biennial football event.

In April for instance, not long after the ouster of Issa Hayatou from CAF, a top official and close ally to new president, Philip Chiyangwa of the Zimbabwe FA, fumed that the decision to award the 2019, 2021 and 2023 AFCONs to Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire and Guinea, was controversial, adding that it was based more on political considerations than merit.

Chiyangwa, who’s also vice president of the African Cup of nations committee of CAF, again raised the issue last month during a visit to Zambia, announcing that there were exploring avenues and possibilities of reviewing the tournaments’ award process.

It would be recalled that about a month ago, another Maghreb nation, Morocco, said it was also ready to come to the rescue if matters reached a point where initial host, Cameroon, were stripped of the right to stage the 2019 tournament.

The 2019 AFCON which is expected to kick off on January 12 2019 is less than 18 months away and keen observers are agreed that some of the major projects in view of the tourney, such as the construction of two giant football stadiums in Yaounde and Douala, are still a long, long way from reaching the half way completion mark.

And there are more fears Cameroon could default on delivering the appropriate infrastructure which also include up-to-standard airports, roads, telecommunication services and other facilities required by CAF.

CAF rules allow the governing body to withdraw AFCON hosting rights from countries that fail to meet deadline obligations for infrastructure indispensable to successful hosting of tournaments.