Categories: Local Soccer

South Africa are bidding for Afcon 2019 – Jordaan

South African Football Association president Danny Jordaan confirmed to Phakaaathi that South Africa were on Friday submitting a bid to the Confederation of African Football to host the 2019 Caf Africa Cup of Nations.

Caf imposed a deadline of Friday at midnight for bids to be submitted, and Safa’s acting CEO Russell Paul was set to submit the bid on time. The competition will feature 24 teams for the first time and is also set to be held in June for the first time.

“There are three processes,” explained Jordaan on Friday.

READ: Egypt launches official bid to host 2019 Africa Cup of Nations

“First you must write a letter to express your interest and we have done that. Caf then sent their reuirements, and you must put together a bid document. The third thing is they (Caf) must take a decision and then you must sign an organising association agreement.”

When pressed on whether Safa were submitting a bid document, Jordaan admitted they were “today”.

The Safa president also admitted he was aware of Egypt’s interest in hosting the competition.

“Egypt said they were not interested at first and they won’t make a bid, because Morocco were making a bid. Yesterday they said Morocco had withdrawn and now we see Egypt are interested. It seems they only want to compete against South Africa”.

Asked whether he was confident a bid from South Africa will succeed, Jordaan responded: “I don’t know, it is the executive of Caf that will vote. We will have to see but we are the only country that hosted the World Cup and therefore we have access in terms of the (hosting) requirements.”

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By Khaya Ndubane