The Confederation of African Football (Caf) has promised that the Cameroon will host the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations following its third inspection of facilities for the tournament.
Caf first Vice President, Amaju Pinnick, who spoke on Monday in Yaounde said that the tournament will not be taken away from the country.
Concerns have been raised about the possibility of Cameroon hosting the tournament after it was expanded into 24-team format from the initial 16-team format.
Morocco or South Africa are being tipped as possible alternative hosting country. But after Caf’s third inspection that ended on Monday, Caf was satisfied with progress made so far.
Pinnick, who gave the assurance that Cameroon would not be stripped of the hosting rights, told Cameroon national radio and television, “What we have seen so far is quite impressive.
“The government (of Cameroon) has made a huge effort towards hosting the best Afcon ever. We are very excited about it. We are truly from the depth of our souls desirous about Cameroon doing this because we know that it is going to impact hugely not just only on Cameroon but the whole continent of Africa.
“We don’t want to put some sort of misconception. We are here for very serious business. Because at the end of the tournament I do not think that we will have any other (African) country that will have the kind of facilities we are going to have here.
“The president of Caf, Mr. Ahmad is 100 percent in support of what we are doing here. I speak to him every second giving him an update of what is happening here and he is very excited about it. He has given us a lot of reassurances.
“Like I said, nobody is going to take it away from Cameroon. They are one of the great footballing nations in the world and not just in Africa.
“We want Cameroon to host the first Afcon under the leadership of Ahmad that we see a lot of changes.”
Having hosted the eight-team 2016 Africa Women Cup of Nations, Cameroon could be confident of their stadia, training facilities and accommodation infrastructure as well as transport networks.
©Independent
