— (Reuters) The Confederation of African Football confirmed early on Saturday that Guinea had lost the right to host the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations finals and that the bidding for the tournament will now open on Saturday.
Following a meeting in Conakry on Friday to discuss the withdrawal, Guinea, one of the poorest nations on the continent, stated that it was not prepared to host the 24-nation competition. Colonel Mamady Doumbouya, the interim president of Guinea, and Patrice Motsepe, the president of African football’s governing body, met to discuss this.
In light of CAF’s decision to forgo holding the AFCON 2025 in Guinea, Motsepe said in a statement, “I visited Guinea out of respect for 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.”
Despite being recently publicised, the choice had already been determined, sources told Reuters.
The decision to reopen the tournament bid process will be made by the CAF executive committee at its meeting on Saturday in Algiers, according to a statement from the CAF.
Guinea, Cameroon (2019), and Ivory Coast were initially given the hosting rights for the 2023 finals in 2014. (2021).
However, Cameroon lost the opportunity to host the 2019 tournament because they were not prepared, and Egypt stepped in.
The 2021 competition was then given to Cameroon, and it finally took place earlier this year after being postponed for a year because to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The following tournament was scheduled to be held in the Ivory Coast in mid-2023, but it has been postponed to early 2024 due to worries about the local climate at that time of year.
The decision is hardly surprising given that Guinea’s limited infrastructure was always going to be taxed by the Cup of Nations finals’ expansion to 24 teams in 2019.
When special forces leader Doumbouya overthrew President Alpha Conde, the nation suffered a coup. Conde had altered the constitution a year earlier to get around restrictions that would have prohibited him from running for a third term, which had led to severe unrest.
As temporary president, Doumbouya pledged to hold democratic elections within three years.
The Economic Community of West African States, which has 15 members, rejected the deadline and punished junta members and their family members with sanctions like as bank account freeze.
Guinea was given until October 22 by the regional bloc to set up a “reasonable” timeframe or risk extra fines (this was in July).
Away from hosting the Cup of Nations is Guinea
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