Guinea’s military junta gave an assurance to the Confederation of African Football (CAF) mission that it will meet the timetable for holding the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations (CAN), reported The Africa News.
The assurance comes as the CAF sent a team to the West African country to assess its progress for hosting the tournament.
Colonel Mamady Doumbouya, who currently serves as Guinea’s president, met with the scrutineers on Wednesday.
“They came with a message, and this message was, ‘Is 2025 feasible for us (Guineans) or not?’, Guinea’s Sports Minister Lansana Bea Diallo said.
He said the CAF team held out the possibility of postponing CAN 2025 until 2026 or 2027.
The minister added that the Guinean president was straightforward and said that the organizing CAN 2025 was a national priority and that it won’t be delayed to 2026 or 2027 for any reason.
Hosting Africa’s biggest sporting event is a big challenge for Guinea, a country which faces a political turmoil and suffers lack of proper sporting and transport infrastructure.
A coup led by Colonel Mamady Doumbouya last year ousted President Alpha Conde after bloody protests over his bid for a third term in office.
Col Doumbouya issued a decree declaring the 2025 competition an issue of national and priority interest. Back in March, he named a new organizing committee after one of its members publicly doubted whether it was feasible to host the tournament in 2025.
“Today we are really reassured by Guinea’s preparedness,” said one of the CAF mission members, Benin’s Mathurin de Chacus.
He said Guinea’s president spoke like a soldier and seemed to be completely determined to organize CAN for the Guinean public. He added that the delegation will brief CAF on the outcome of its mission.
Guinea was originally scheduled to stage CAN in 2023, but this was pushed back by two years when the list of organising nations was reshuffled in 2018. Ivory Coast will hold the 2023 event.
