Izuchukwu OkosiNigeria and Algeria garnered zero points on Wednesday afternoon as the Confederation of African Football (CAF) announced Morocco as the host of the 35th edition of the Africa Cup of Nations in 2025, reports Prime Business Africa.
Nigeria had indicated interest in hosting the tournament after they hosted and won it in 1980 and also co-hosted with Ghana in 2000.
However, Morocco whose facilities are of world class standards and have relatively low political tensions have gotten the nod after claiming 22 votes with Nigeria and Algeria getting zero votes as the Executive Committee meeting at the Cairo Marriott hotel continues.
Nigeria will now hope to get the approval of CAF as co-host of the 2027 Africa Cup of Nations with Benin Republic.
It would be the third time that Morocco will be hosting continental football tournaments in three years.
Morocco hosted the 2022 Africa Women’s Cup of Nations, AWCON and will host the next edition next year albeit the date has not been decided.
The continent’s top tournament was initially scheduled to hold in June-July 2025.
However, due to the formation of the expanded FIFA Club World Cup scheduled to be held in June-July 2025, the 2025 AFCON might be hosted in January-February 2026.
Guinea were earlier earmarked as hosts of the 2025 AFCON but the rights was withdrawn from them as the designated facilities were not of required standards.
The political tension that culminated in the military coup in the country also forced the hands of the football ruling body in Africa.
Bidding process timelines:
11 November 2022: Deadline for submitting the Declaration of Interest form
16 November 2022: Deadline for CAF to send the hosting documents to Member Associations that have declared their interest.
16 December 2022: Deadline for Member Associations to submit their final bid, including all bidding and hosting documents (hosting agreement, host cities agreement, Government guarantees)
20 March–2 April 2023: Inspection visits
27 September 2023: Appointment of Host Country/Countries by the CAF Executive Committee
Izuchukwu Okosi is a Nigerian sports and entertainment journalist with two decades of experience in the media industry having begun his media journey in 2002 as an intern at Mundial Sports International (MSI) and Africa Independent Television (AIT), owners of Daar Communications Plc.
In October 2004, Okosi joined Complete Communications Limited, publishers of Complete Sports newspaper and Complete Football magazine as a reporter and later script writer for the Complete Sports studio.
He worked there for 13 years until October 2017.
Okosi also worked various times as Correspondent, Content creator and Editor at Sports Market International Magazine, Opera News, All Nigeria Soccer Media and Iconic Media Watch.
He also undertook freelance writing gigs for some local and international organizations.
Okosi is a member of the Actors Guild of Nigeria (AGN), Association of Movie Producers (AMP), Association of Voiceover Artistes of Nigeria (AVOA), Sports Writers Association of Nigeria (SWAN) and Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ).
He has been part of cast in some Nollywood movies and radio dramas including Blood Money 2, Scores To Settle, Dead End 2, Another Campus Tale and Battle Line.
Aside mainstream media and the entertainment industry, he has interests in scouting/unearthing of talents in the sports and creative sectors, exports business and property development.
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