AFCON 2025: Guinea Approach Senegal For Co-Hosting

AFCON 2025: Guinea Approach Senegal For Co-Hosting

By Sampson Adedeji

Antonio Souaré, president of the Guinean Football Federation (Feguifoot), calls on the governments of Guinea and Senegal to make a possibility of co-hosting the 2025 African Cup of Nations , which the African Football Confederation (CAF) has already entrusted to its country.

"This is an option that the two governments could consider," replied Souaré, questioned on this subject by the Senegalese daily newspaper Stades.

Unlike the president of the Feguifoot, the Guinean Minister of Sports, Sanoussy Bantamba Sow, opposed the wish of the president of the Senegalese Football Federation, Augustin Senghor, of a co-organization of CAN 2025 by the two neighboring countries.

Antonio Souaré clarified that it is up to the governments of the two countries to discuss it.

Vice-president of the organizing committee of the CAN, he was less explicit about the preparations for the competition planned in Guinea. "The organizing committee is working on the specifications," he said, adding that scheduled meetings with CAF experts have been canceled due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

A candidate for a CAN with 16 teams, Guinea, like Cameroon and Côte d'Ivoire, was forced to readjust to the new specifications which increased the number of participants from 16 to 24 in the final phase of the CAN.

Several CAF experts have called on African States to engage in the voice of the co-organization of the competition to give themselves a better chance of hosting it, since the candidates for the organization of the African tournament must have infrastructures according to the number of participants.

Designated to host CAN 2019, Cameroon has been withdrawn from the competition because of the delay in the construction of its infrastructure.

CAF then decided to leave the organization of the 2021 edition to Cameroon. Côte d'Ivoire and Guinea will respectively organize the 2023 and 2025 editions of the CAN.