CAF Confirms Guinea-Bissau, Nigeria Clash for Morocco
Femi Solaja with agency report
Following the inability of Guinea-Bissau to provide a good home ground to host the country’s return fixture against Nigeria’s Super Eagles in the on-going AFCON 2023 qualifying round of matches, CAF ruled yesterday that Morocco has been adopted as home ground for the Guineans.
The African Wild Dogs will host the Super Eagles on the 28thof next month in the Match-day 4 fixture. The first leg of the qualifying match will hold a week earlier on March 20th at the MKO Abiola Stadium in Abuja.
CAF had last weekend approved several stadiums to host the qualifying matches across the continent and only 24 of the 48 nations participating had their home grounds given all-clear signals to stage matches.
The continental body also directed that countries without approved stadiums will have the option of an adopted ground to host their home matches. Morocco hosted many countries’ matches in the last AFCON and FIFA World Cup qualifying matches.
Super Eagles are in firm control of Group A with maximum six points after beating Sierra Leone in Nigeria before thrashing Sao Tome and Principe in Morocco last year.
Should Nigeria win both matches, Eagles will have maximum 12 points and qualify for the tournament to be hosted by Côte d’Ivoire in January 2024 with two matches to spare.
In another development, CAF is expected to also name the host nation for the 2025 tournament today. Nigeria and Benin Republic have a joint bid while Zambia, South Africa, Morocco and Algeria are the other countries in the contest to win the hosting rights.
The on-going political disagreement between Morocco and Algeria could force CAF to ignore either of the two in spite of their fantastic facilities.
The Nigeria/Rep of Benin bid may also be ignored to avoid West Africa staging the tournament back-to-back since Cote D’ Ivoire will host the 2023 edition moved to 2024.
That leaves the bid in favour of South Africa and Zambia.
South Africa is the home of CAF boss, Patrice Motsepe and boast of quality facilities that were used to stage the FIFA World Cup in 2010 and hosting the AFCON 2013.
