CAN 2019 football will take place in Cameroon? CAF meets Friday

The African Football Confederation (CAF) will discuss, Friday, November 30, the issue of holding in Cameroon the African Cup of Nations (CAN) 2019, which has been debated for several months.

The executive committee of the pan-African organization will meet Friday in the capital of Ghana, Accra, on the sidelines of the women's CAN, said Thursday to AFP a CAF official. A report of the last two inspection visits will be made during this meeting. The CAF emissaries recently conducted a security inspection and a review of infrastructure, stadiums and accommodation.

After the meeting of the leaders, a decision will be made on the maintenance or not of CAN 2019 in Cameroon, told Agence France-Presse (AFP) the head of the CAF, without specifying exactly when this decision would be made.

"No plan B"

If Cameroon is dismissed, the Confederation will have to restart a procedure of call for candidatures to designate another host country for this tournament, which must be held in June 2019. Morocco, unfortunate candidate for the organization of the World 2026 (attributed to the trio United States – Mexico – Canada), is regularly quoted by the media as a possible replacement.

On September 29, at an executive committee held in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, CAF pointed "A significant delay in the realization of infrastructures" needed for CAN 2019.

However, the president of the organization, the Malagasy Ahmad Ahmad, declared in early October during a visit to Cameroon that it "Did not have a plan B". «CAF has never thought about a CAN withdrawal in Cameroon […] It depends on Cameroon »he had stressed.

In Sharm el-Sheikh in September, Happi Dieudonné, of the Cameroon Football Federation, assured that his country "Would be ready". The security context is currently very tense, with persistent attacks by Boko Haram jihadists in the north of the country and a conflict between the army and separatists in the two Anglophone regions of North West and South West.