Egypt Will Host AFCON 2019

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Egypt have won the rights to host the African Cup of Nations tournament this summer after an announcement made by the Confederation of African Football (CAF) today. 

The tournament which is taking place in June and July this year was meant to be hosted by Cameroon. However, with the pressure of hosting the new 24-team tournament and slow preparations, CAF stripped Cameroon the rights to host the competition in November last year.

Egypt and South Africa made bids to host competition soon after and the CAF extensive committee had a vote on who will host the tournament which Egypt won by 16 to South Africa's 1. The reason from CAF is due to the low attendance in football stadia especially matches for the South African National Team (Bafana Bafana).

This will be the fifth time that Egypt will host the competition with the last time being in 2006 where Egypt won on home soil. It instantly makes Egypt heavy favourites to win it having Mohamed Salah, who is likely to the CAF African Player of the Year Award but will face uncertainty with the weather during the summer and how volatile the Middle East is, with Egypt a likely threat to terror attacks.

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