Egypt beats South Africa for AFCON 2019 hosting right
Egypt beat South Africa to win the hosting rights for the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations(AFCON), which will begin in June.
According to the Confederation of African Football (Caf) Egypt got 16 votes to win the hosting bid. South Africa only got a vote. There was one abstention.
The vote was by members of the Caf executive committee, meeting in Dakar Senegal, where later in the day the African Footballer of the year will also be announced.
Three famous African players, Egypt’s Mohamed Salah, Gabon’s Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Senegal’s Sadio Mane are competing for the award. Salah won it last year.
Cameroon was billed to host AFCOn 2019 until it was stripped of staging duties in November because of slow preparations.
Egypt, has just six months to prepare for the expanded 24-team finals.
It will be the fifth time Egypt has hosted the tournament, the most recent was in 2006.
Caf has since offered Cameroon the chance to stage the finals in two years’ time, which has meant that the original hosts for both the 2021 and 2023 finals have been asked to delay their tournaments.
Caf had originally planned to name the new hosts on Wednesday 9 January.
Ivory Coast, which was set to host the 2021, has protested against the decision at the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
Guinea’s football federation announced on Monday that it has agreed to move its staging of the Nations Cup from 2023 to 2025.
*With BBC reports
NAN
