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Cameroon’s possibility to host the 2021 Africa’s flag ship football jamboree has yet again been put under scrutiny following recent developments from the Algerian sports ministry. Speaking to the press recently, the Algerian minister of Youths and Sport, Raouf Bernaoui, said they have been told to be on red alert as potential replacement of AFCON 2021 should the host fail to meet the requirement of CAF.
“Algeria have been told to prepare, should the 2021 AFCON be withdrawn from Cameroon. We hope that they will host the tournament. The government has given the go ahead to the Algerian Football Federation to make a bid if Cameroon fails to meet up. We have the means to organize the Africa Cup of Nations, the stadiums are ready. We saw what Egypt did, they had to renovate their stadiums to standard with just a limited period of six months.” Bernaoui said.
Going by the Algerian sporst ministry, it appears CAF has chosen Algeria as a plan B to host the 2021 Africa Cup of Nations in case Cameroon fall short to meet standards. But the Confederation of African Football has not made any official outing on the subject. It appears the continent’s football body does not want another flash replacement for Cameroon should things not go as planned.
Cameroon secured the right to host the 2019 competition in 2014 but lost the rights to host in November 2018. This happened mainly because Cameroonian authorities got into real physical work in 2017.
CAF withdrew the hosting rights of the 2019 tournament from Cameroon but did not apply the sanctions that had to follow, they rather gave Cameroon a two year extension period to solve their security worries and complete the works on the different sites so as to be ready to host in 2021. This caused some embarrassment for CAF but President Ahmad Ahmad took upon himself to engage in some high level diplomatic negotiations with the Presidents of Ivory Coast and Guinea to make the shift in hosting calendar possible.
It is reported that an official demand has been made from CAF to the 2019 AFCON winners to get ready to host the 2021 tournament in-case Cameroon fails to meet up with preparations to host the competition, a possibility which is looking more and more likely every passing day.
Such declarations are expected to awaken the Cameroonian authorities to do more to ensure Cameroon be ready before 2021.
Recent developments from Cameroon trying to ask for a postponement of the African Nations Championship (CHAN) from January to February 2020 to June-July 2020 to better rehearse has created mixed feelings amongst Cameroonians.
CAF attributed the hosting of the CHAN 2020 to Cameroon after withdrawing the hosting rights from Ethiopia with the goal of helping the country to get its infrastructure ready in the build up to the big event in 2021.