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Top Ghana Official Expected Gabon To Win AFCON Hosting Bid

Top Ghana Official Expected Gabon To Win AFCON Hosting Bid

Ghana Black Stars Management Committee chairman, George Afriyie, has revealed that he expected the outcome of the 2017 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) host nation bid, which went the way of Gabon with an official announcement from the Confederation of African Football (CAF) on Wednesday.

The 2017 competition was originally scheduled to take place in Libya, but political turmoil in the country forced a change to the host nation, and at the ongoing CAF General Assembly meeting the decision was taken to hand the hosting responsibility to Gabon.

The country previously co-hosted the 2012 edition of the competition along with Equatorial Guinea, and they have now been given the opportunity to organise the tournament on their own. The Gabonese bid beat rival efforts from Ghana and Algeria

Afriyie commented on the situation following CAF’s decision to hand the AFCON tournament rights to the successful Gabon bid delegation.

“I knew Gabon was going to win and everybody I spoke to ahead of the draw made the same remarks, Afriyie said, according to SuperSport.

“I say this because the 2017 rights had already been given, just like 2019 and 2021 but Libya pulled out of the 2017 event.

“So Ghana was chasing an event which had already been awarded and if such things happen, then the countries that hosted the event not long ago have better chance because their facilities would be in a better state.”

The Nations Cup will take place in January and February of 2017, and the qualification campaign to decide the teams that will take part is set to commence in June this year.

Gabon will now have just under two years to prepare itself to welcome the best national teams that the continent has to offer, ensuring that the facilities and infrastructure are in place to host the tournament.