CAF Drop Kenya As CHAN Host, Retain Cameroon For AFCON

The Confederation of Africa Football (CAF) have stripped Kenya of the right to host the 2018 African
Nations Championship (CHAN) following a CAF executive committee meeting in Accra.

According to BBC Sports, the decision to strip Kenya of the hosting right was announced at a media conference after a one-day meeting by CAF executive committee headed by their president  Ahmad Ahmad in Accra, Ghana on Saturday.

CAF announced that the decision to move the tournament was made due to accumulated delays from reports of the various inspection missions conducted in the country.

It was revealed that a CAF inspection team visited Kenya from 11 to 17 September 2017 and found that only one of the four venues was ready to stage the event.

There was also concern about the political situation in Kenya, where recently annulled presidential elections are set to be re-run next month.

And on the issue of who the new host country of the 2018 CHAN would be, CAF stated that a bidding process for new hosts will be opened immediately.

In other decisions taken at the meeting on Saturday, CAF announced that for now, Cameroon remains as hosts of the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations, though the organising committee must organise for an audit firm to carry out an inspection mission of the country’s infrastructure.

CAF also announced that Egypt has replaced Zambia as host of the 2019 Africa U-23 Cup of Nations, which doubles as qualification for the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games.
Zambia withdrew as host of the eight-nation competition on financial grounds.

The 16-team CHAN tournament for locally-based players only is scheduled to take place between 12 January and 4 February 2018.

The home-based Super Eagles are one of the teams that will take part in the 2018 CHAN after eliminating Benin Republic 2-1 on aggregate.