In a shocking twist and what many consider as irresponsible, the Confederation of Africa Football (CAF) has announced that, the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations will be hosted by Equatorial Guinea—this comes after Morroco which was to host the tournament asked to postpone it from 17 January to 8 February because of the current Ebola outbreak…
CAF rejected Morroco’s proposal and went on a hunt, looking for a country willing to host it—and though Ghana was considered, public opinion in Ghana was against the idea to the extent that the Ministry of Sports did not even have to consider holding talks with CAF.
Morocco has been expelled from the relocated tournament, which will now be held in Equatorial Guinea, a country which co-hosted with Gabon in 2012.
And since Equatorial Guinea is hosting the tournament, they will also be playing despite having been disqualified earlier from the tournament for playing an ineligible player in a preliminary qualifier against Mauritania.
CAF said the decision was made after a meeting in Malabo on Friday between Equatorial Guinea’s president Teodoro Obiang and CAF president-Issa Hayatou.
Issa Hayatou in a statement said; “The head of state of Equatorial Guinea agreed to host the competition. As a result, the Caf executive committee confirms that the tournament will go ahead and Equatorial Guinea will compete as the host nation.
“Caf wishes to express its sincere thanks to the Equatorial Guinean people, its government and particularly president Obiang.”