Kharbouch: Morocco ready to host 2025 AFCON

General view of the Africa Cup of Nations Trophy

Tuesday Feb 28, 2023. 15:06

Morocco are ready to replace Guinea as the hosts of the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) finals.

Guinea were stripped of hosting the 2025 edition due to inadequacy and speed of progress in hosting preparations.

Consequently, a new process was re-opened for a replacement host bidder with Algeria, Morocco, South Africa, Zambia and a joint Benin-Nigeria bid in the running to host the event.

“Morocco is ready,” top Moroccan official Hassan Kharbouch told BBC Sport Africa.

“We just organised a successful Club World Cup after our previous successes of hosting this same tournament in 2013 and 2014.

“We’ve also staged the Under-17 and Under-23 Nations Cups and as hosts we delivered record African attendances for the Women’s Cup of Nations in Rabat and Casablanca in 2022,” Kharbouch continued.

“We have all the facilities and logistics to organise the African Cup of Nations, not only in Rabat and Casablanca but also in Tangier, Oujda, Fez, Marrakech and Agadir, each venue boasting of a number of training sites.”

Morocco last hosted the tournament in 1988 and they were due to stage it again in 2015 but withdrew because of fears over an Ebola outbreak.