CHAN 2018 Hosts -The Confederation of African Football (CAF) has announced that next year’s CHAN, will be hosted by Morocco.
Morocco now replaces former hosts Kenya who lost the rights to stage the 2018 African Nations Championship for failing to meet CAF’s requirements.
See Also: Ghana Also Shows Readiness To Host CHAN
The decision to take the tournament to Morocco was made at an emergency CAF executive committee meeting in Lagos, Nigeria, on Saturday, October 14, 2017.
Kenya was initially billed to stage the tournament reserved for players who feature in their domestic leagues, but they were stripped of the hosting rights in September as preparations were far behind schedule.
Subsequently, CAF unanimously decided to give Morocco the tournament ahead of Equatorial Guinea. According to the body, the candidacy of Morocco was preferred to that of Equatorial Guinea, another country to have submitted a valid application.
CAF explained that Kenya’s withdrawal on 23 September 2017 in Accra, triggered a fresh bidding process declared by the Executive Committee in accordance with the statutes and the deadlines.
Morocco became one of three candidates that showed interests following the withdrawal of Kenya as host of the 5th edition of the competition on 23 September.
There was also a third bidder, Ethiopia, who was not considered as it did not provide a letter of guarantee from its government -a mandatory document required by the rules of application of the Statutes of the CAF.
Morocco have not hosted a senior CAF competition since the 1988 Africa Cup of Nations. In 2015, the country was scheduled to host the same event but withdrew fearing visiting supporters could bring the deadly Ebola virus into the north African region.
Equatorial Guinea that year, successfully replaced Morocco at short notice, having co-hosted the Cup of Nations with Gabon three years earlier.
Morocco hosted the U23 AFCON in 2011, which was the qualifying tournament for the London Olympics in 2012. They have staged the AFCON in 1988 as well as the U17 AFCON in 2013.
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