[ 2014-10-16 ]

CAF Urges Ghana To Host AFCON 2015
...Following Withdrawal Of Morroco Due To Ebola


The Confederation of African Football (CAF) has
written to urge Ghana to consider hosting next
year’s African Cup of Nations (Afcon) should
Morocco go ahead to pull out from hosting the
games.

Moroccan media on Wednesday reported that the
country had officially pulled out of hosting the
games, but there has not been any official
statement on that as of now.

The country wrote officially to CAF about 10 days
ago to reschedule AFCON 2015 because of the fears
of the deadly Ebola virus.

According to Morocco because tens of thousands
people will be travelling to Morocco for the
tournament, hosting the competition at this time
may complicate the fight against Ebola.

Confirming the latest development on Citi FM
Thursday, the Minister of Youth and Sports, Mr
Mahama Ayariga, said CAF had indeed written to
Ghana.

“CAF wrote to us a few days ago actually and
indicated that Morocco has given strong
indications, that they will pull out if CAF did
not change the date, and CAF also indicated that
it was firm on those dates.”

Mr Ayariga said, CAF will be meeting the Moroccan
authorities and take a decision but in the
meantime, the continent's football governing body
has written to a number of countries that they
think have the capacity to be an alternative venue
for Afcon 2015.

According to the Minister, Ghana is one of such
countries.

“They are writing to us to consider hosting
Afcon 2015 in the event of Morocco actually
pulling out if they are unable to reach an
agreement on the date."

Mr Ayariga said CAF also indicated in the letter
that they had written to a number of other
countries.

"Now I don’t know which other countries they
have written to but that’s what they said in the
letter. So I received the letter from the GFA and
I have been looking at the two key issues involved
assuming that we are to put ourselves in
readiness…. The cost of hosting it and the very
health issues that is making Morocco to renege on
the commitment they made to CAF.”

"Those are the matters that the Ministry was
looking into and evaluating," the Minister of
Youth and Sports added.

Asked whether Ghana should even entertain CAF's
call, considering how deadly and problematic ebola
was even in the advance countries, Mr Ayariga said
that was why the request was being evaluated.

“Guinea is a country that has a problem with
Ebola and Morocco hosted Guinea to play Ghana last
weekend in Casablanca. Guinea came to Ghana and
played yesterday and have gone back. Sierra Leone
is a country that has a problem with Ebola and
yesterday I think they were in Cameroun and they
played there and so I think that we need to look
at it in terms of the health issues and at the
same time we will be looking at the financial
implications. Depending on the advice, we will be
able to appropriately communicate back to CAF. It
is only today that I’m hearing the formal
refusal of Morocco.”

“I have been monitoring international media and
I’m told that South Africa is also actually
entertaining and in a meeting to take a decision
on that.”

Mr Ayariga said they needed to discuss with
various stakeholders to be able to take a decision
as to where CAF itself should go talking about the
tournament being just three months away.

Source - Daily Graphic

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