Izuchukwu OkosiThe Confederation of African Football (CAF) has re-opened the bidding process for the hosting rights of the Africa Cup of Nations 2025 AFCON 2025 after the withdrawal of the hosting rights from Guinea.
Guinea has been deemed unable to host to the rest of the continent as infrastructure and facilities are not ready for the tournament which was shifted from January 2023 to the same time frame in 2024.
The Nigeria Football Federation under the reins of former President Amaju Pinnick stated that Nigeria will be keen to co-host the 2025 AFCON with Benin Republic.
CAF has sent a notice to the Member Associations to express their interest in hosting the AFCON 2025 including the process that will be followed in the selection of the host country or countries.
According to timeline for the bidding process as released by CAF, 11 November 2022 is the deadline for submitting the Declaration of Interest form by interested countries.
The deadline for CAF to send the hosting documents to Member Associations that have declared their interest is Wednesday 16 November 2022.
A month later, 16 December 2022 has been set aside as deadline for Member Associations to submit their final bid, including all bidding and hosting documents (hosting agreement, host cities agreement, Government guarantees)
CAF’s delegation will embark on inspection visit to countries who have submitted bids between 5-25 January 2023
CAF’s Executive Committee will announce the host nation on February 10 February, 2023.
The President of CAF Dr Patrice Motsepe in a meeting with the Guinea Transition President, Colonel Mamadi Doumbouya revealed that he went ahead to visit the country because of his respect to the people of Guinea.
“I visited Guinea today out of respect to the people of Guinea to discuss CAF’s willingness to advise and work together with the football stakeholders to construct and build football infrastructure and facilities in this country.
“This will enable Guinea to bid with other competing Nations for the (next edition) of the African Nations Championships (CHAN) which will take place after the CHAN to be hosted by Algeria in 2023, in the light of the decision by CAF not to proceed with the TotalEnergies AFCON 2025 in Guinea.”
Before meeting with Colonel Doumbouya, Dr Motsepe held talks with the leadership of the Fédération Guinéenne de Football (FEGUIFOOT), the Minister of Youth and Sports, Lansana Bea Diallo, and the Prime Minister Dr Bernard Goumou.
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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