Tag Archives: Hayatou

Hayatou Laments Nigeria’s Absence from Nations Cup

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Confederation of African Football (Caf) president Issa Hayatou says Nigeria’s failure to qualify for the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations has not diminished the country’s importance to the structure of African football. Reigning champions Nigeria will not defend their title in Equatorial Guinea after they finished outside of their group’s top two automatic qualification spots.

They ended the qualifying campaign with eight points – a total not good enough for the best third-placed team. Hayatou told Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) president Amaju Pinnick that the entire African football family will feel the absence of the Super Eagles at next year’s finals. “The whole of Africa will miss Nigeria in Equatorial Guinea. But the absence will not in any way diminish your stature as a very big and influential nation in the African game,” Hayatou was quoted as saying in an NFF statement. “It would have been good to have the defending champions in Equatorial Guinea. “Nigeria brings so much value to the Africa Cup of Nations. However, we know that you will come back much stronger, as you did in winning the Cup in South Africa last year after missing out on the 2012 championship.” The West Africa country suffered a troubled qualification campaign where they not only struggled with form on the pitch but were also affected by deep divisions in the NFF.

Coach Stephen Keshi’s position was also unstable, and he was frequently in and out of the job. Meanwhile, officials have reiterated that Nigeria will host Brazil in a prestigious friendly in March 2015. The NFF says the game against the five-time world champions will go ahead as planned on 29 March at the new Akwa Ibom stadium that was opened in early November. “Everything has been finalised for the friendly game to go ahead as planned,” NFF president Amaju Pinnick told BBC Sport. The two sides have only ever met once in the past and that was a friendly in 2003 in Abuja with Brazil emerging 3-0 winners.

Credit: BBC Sport

African Cup Host to be Named in 2-3 Days

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A new host for the African Cup of Nations will be named in 2-3 days, the Confederation of African Football said Wednesday, although it still hasn’t made contact with the countries who could possibly replace Morocco.

“All I can say is that it will be played somewhere,” CAF President Issa Hayatou said in comments published Wednesday by the African soccer body from an interview with television station France 24.

Hayatou offered no clarity on the new host for the continent’s top tournament with only two months to go until kickoff. But he did say it would go ahead as planned in January and February.

Morocco was dumped as host and thrown out of the 2015 African Cup on Tuesday after insisting it should be delayed over fears of the spread of Ebola. The CAF president said “it was absolutely necessary to end this standoff” with Morocco by stripping it of hosting rights.

CAF had “a few requests” from African federations to step in for Morocco, Hayatou said in the France 24 interview, which was originally broadcast Tuesday night. However, CAF still had to fully investigate the options.

“We have not had the time to get in touch with these federations to try to define the contours of the organization,” Hayatou said, according to the interview transcript released by CAF. “Therefore, I cannot tell you where it will be played. All I can tell you is that it will take place.”

Nigeria, Angola and Gabon have been mentioned as possible stand-in hosts, while South Africa, Egypt, Sudan, Ghana and Algeria have all seemingly ruled themselves out. No country has yet said publicly it wants to host the tournament at short notice.

Hayatou did say that delaying the tournament — as Morocco had requested — would have hurt CAF’s relationship with its sponsors, while some of Africa’s top players may not have been released by their European clubs to play in a re-scheduled tournament.

That would have been like signing a “death warrant” for African football, Hayatou said.

“Once you postpone this event, it will open the door for everybody to ask for a delay of any competition and we will no longer be credible and cannot organize anything,” he said. “We will hurt our sponsors and partners … That is what I told the Moroccans. We cannot sign our death warrant, because if we postpone this event, it will be very deadly for African football.”

Hayatou’s comments underlined CAF’s most pressing reason for keeping the African Cup to the planned dates of Jan. 17-Feb. 8: a delay would affect the money-earning potential of its main tournament and source of revenue.

Credit: Yahoo News