The 2019 Africa Cup of Nations tournament will
be staged in Egypt between June and July, as confirmed by Caf on Tuesday
The
Confederation of African Football (Caf) announced Egypt as the new hosts for
the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations tournament.
Egypt
submitted their bid alongside South Africa to host the finals after the rights
were taken away from Cameroon late last year.
According to
Caf, Cameroon was not ready to host an expanded 24-team tournament.
Caf was
expected to make an official announcement on Wednesday, but the decision was
brought forward to Tuesday.
Egypt
received 16 votes to South Africa's one, Caf confirmed in a press
conference.
Both Egypt
and South Africa have extensive football facilities to host the tournament but
reports suggest that there were reservations expressed about low South African
attendance.
Attendance
at football matches has decreased in South African stadia in recent years,
including Bafana Bafana matches, which could have had an impact on the country
hosting a successful tournament.
While South
African football fans were divided as to whether or not the country should bid
for the tournament, the South African Football Association (Safa) never got the
backing from the government which reportedly made it difficult for Caf to
accept their bid.
The South
African government expected Caf to provide details of what was expected from them
before agreeing to help Safa, but the process never followed through.
Egypt, who
won the Afcon trophy a record seven times, will host the tournament for the
third time in their history.
The last
time they hosted the tournament was back in 2006 where South Africa crashed out
in the group stages without registering a single win under the late Ted
Dumitru.
Ahmed
Shobier, who is a member of the Egypt Federation Board, reacted to the news in
a series of tweets.
"The
moment Egypt won the tournament (hosting rights) it became a response to the
skeptics. The prestige and value of Egypt and the great figures in it, such as
engineer Hani Abu Rida was very significant to make the difference. This led to
the great professionalism for Egypt to win the organization (of the
Afcon)," he said.
"I
assure everyone of the next step for Egypt, the Minister of Youth and Sports,
the fans and the Football Federation is capable of organizing a big tournament
and we promise everyone that this will be a tournament of the highest level in
the organization. We will work on returning the masses of supporters for the
tournament and this objective should be complete after the tournament."
"The
(preparation) time is not great but everyone will see Egyptians. It will be
better because we won by a clean sweep and we will organize an ideal
tournament, and we will make the African Union (Caf) wish to choose Egypt for
every African Championship," concluded Shobier.
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