Cameroon to host AFCON 2019

 

 

For the first time, Cameroon will host the Africa Cup of Nations in 2019. It would be the 32nd edition of the tour­nament that began in 1957 in Sudan.
President of the Confederation of Africa Football (CAF), Issa Hayatou, who announced the winning bids for the next three editions of the tournaments yesterday at the Africa Union Headquarters in


Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, also named Ivory Coast and Guinea as respective hosts for the 2021 and 2023 editions of the continent’s biggest football showpiece.
Interestingly, Hayatou, who hails from Cam­eroon, has been on the driver’s seat of African football since March 10, 1988 with many raising eyebrows as to why his native country had never hosted the biennial continental soc­cer fiesta, more than 26 years of his regime as CAF President.
The Executive Committee of Africa’s gov­erning body of football met yesterday to vote on the bids.The Committee also resolved to give unanimous support to Sepp Blatter at next year’s FIFA elective assembly.
Cameroon has won the Nations Cup four times, all away from its home soil. The Indom­itable Lions, as the national team is known, won the prestigious trophy for the first time in 1984 in Ivory Coast and claimed the title for the second time in 1988 when Morocco hosted.
Cameroon also won the trophy back-to-back in 2000 when Nigeria and Ghana co-hosted as well as 2002 in Mali.
Interestingly, the Cameroon Lions defeated Nigeria’s Eagles in the finals to win the first three of their four Nations Cup titles.