Guinea stripped off Cup of Nations hosting rights

JOHANNESBURG : Guinea have been stripped of the right to host the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations finals and the bidding for the tournament is set to be reopened on Saturday, the Confederation of African football announced early on Saturday.

It follows a meeting on Friday in Conakry between Guinea’s interim president, Colonel Mamady Doumbouya, and the president of African football’s governing body, Patrice Motsepe, to discuss the withdrawal after the west African country, among the poorest of the continent, said it was not ready to host the 24-nation tournament.

“I visited Guinea out of respect to the people of Guinea to discuss CAF’s willingness to advise and work together with the football stakeholders to construct and build football infrastructure and facilities in this country, in the light of the decision by CAF not to proceed with the AFCON 2025 in Guinea,” Motsepe said in a statement.

Although just announced, the decision had been made as early as June, sources told Reuters.

The CAF executive committee will be meeting in Algiers on Saturday and will take a decision to reopen the bidding process for the 2025 tournament, the CAF statement said.

In 2014, Guinea originally were awarded the hosting rights to the 2023 finals, along with Cameroon (2019) and Ivory Coast (2021).

But Cameroon were stripped of the right to host the 2019 tournament, as they were not ready, with Egypt filling in. Cameroon were then awarded the 2021 tournament, which eventually took place earlier this year after a one-year postponement because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Ivory Coast were due to host the next tournament in mid-2023 but that has been moved to early 2024 after concerns over the weather at that time of the year in the region.

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