The Confederation of African Football (CAF) has thwarted the appeal by the President of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), Amaju Melvin Pinnick, for Nigeria to co-host the 2025 edition of the TotalEnergies Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON).
Guinea was picked to host the next edition after the 2024 AFCON final in Ivory Coast but the restiveness in the west African country since the coup last year gives course for concern.
The concern has made Pinnick through a zoom meeting on Tuesday to inform the continental football governing body of Nigeria’s preparedness to co-host the 2025 edition with the Benin Republic.
However, against Pinnick’s wish, CAF has distanced itself from such suggestions with one of its top executives affirming that Guinea remains the host nation of the 2025 AFCON event.
“The host for the 2025 tournament remains Guinea and that has not changed,” the CAF executive told BBC Sport Africa.
The CAF executive claimed that they have not received any formal notification from the Guinea football association about their inability to host the continental event.
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He continued: “We’ve not discussed anything about a replacement or received any communication from Guinea about the inability to host.
At this very moment, everything is on track for Guinea to host and there is no reason to suggest otherwise,” he added.
Nigeria’s push to host the 2025 edition is a result of the security situation in Guinea. Though CAF is unwavering on its stand to withdraw the hosting right from Guinea, Pinnick is confident that Nigeria is ready to host the tourney.
“We are still in the early stage of the whole process,” he said.
“As time goes on things will get clearer as to the stadiums Nigeria will present to host the matches,” Pinnick added.
Should Nigeria be granted the right to co-host the tourney, it will be the third time after the 1980 edition where they won their maiden AFCON title before co-hosting with Ghana in 2000 where they lost to Cameroon in the final.
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