Mvurya allays Kenya CHAN fears

by Staff Reporter

Tuesday May 27, 2025. 11:00

Kenya Sports Cabinet Secretary Salim Mvurya has called for reports claiming the country is not ready to co-host the 2024 Africa Nations Championships (CHAN) in August to be ignored.

The Confederation of African Football (CAF) pushed back the biennial tournament by six months in January after Kenya failed to ensure that its stadiums were ready on time for the initial starting date of February 1.

However, there are lingering fears that CAF could strip the East Africans of their hosting rights over concerns about the poor quality of grass used for the pitches at the Moi International Sports Centre Kasarani and the Nyayo Stadium.

Inspectors for African football’s governing body reportedly found that the grass at both venues does not comply with world standards.

But Mvurya insists CAF is happy with Kenya’s preparations to stage CHAN alongside Tanzania and Uganda following the latest round of inspections which took place last week.

“I have seen in some of the social media, people saying that Kenya is not ready to host CHAN. I want to say that I had a meeting with team from CAF on Friday because it is normal for them to do inspections, until the final day in July. In the discussions and in the report, Kenya is ready to host CHAN,” Mvurya said.

“Therefore, any reports – social media or otherwise – should be ignored. We have invested a lot of money in our infrastructure in Kasarani and Nyayo. We have already Ksh 1.6 billion hosting fee and therefore all the other processes are normal processes to ensure that we are in tandem with the process of hosting CHAN.

“In fact, what I would be embarking on in the next few weeks is to prepare Harambee Stars to make sure that they win the trophy.”