CAF urges Ghana to host Afcon 2015 (audio)

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.

Listen to Mahama Ayariga confirm CAF's decision

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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.

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Writer's email: enoch.frimpong@graphic.com.gh