Danny Jordaan will be part of South Africa’s bid team as last year’s World Cup host makes its final pitch to host the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations on Saturday.
Jordaan, the Soccer World Cup’s chief organiser, will join South African Football Association president Kirsten Nematandani and chief executive Leslie Sedibe for a 45-minute presentation to Africa’s football confederation (CAF) in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Safa said. They are competing against Morocco for the hosting rights.
CAF will decide the hosts of the 2015 and 2017 tournaments later on Saturday at a meeting of its executive committee.
South Africa and Morocco, the country South Africa beat for the right to stage the Soccer World Cup, are the only two nations bidding after the DRC withdrew from the race. CAF will merely decide in which order they host the tournaments.
Both have hosted Africa’s continental championship once before and have each won it once.
Jordaan returned as a vice-president at Safa after the World Cup’s organising committee wrapped up last year and will again campaign for a major soccer tournament for South Africa after he led the country’s successful World Cup bid in 2004.
South Africa beat Morocco by four votes to become Africa’s first host of the world’s biggest soccer tournament.
‘Comprehensive’ presentation
Safa said on Friday its presentation team would give CAF a “comprehensive” presentation of its readiness to host the Africa Cup of Nations in four years’ time. South Africa won as host in 1996.
It is likely to use much of the infrastructure it built for the Soccer World Cup, including six new stadiums, but said it did not automatically expect to be awarded the 2015 event despite the success of last year’s tournament.
“We have worked very hard regarding our bid documents,” Nematandani said. “There was no room for complacency and that is a hallmark of the professionalism of our country’s bid.”
Morocco said it wanted to stage the 2015 Cup of Nations to help its football progress toward professionalism. The North African nation staged the tournament in 1988.
Gabon and Equatorial Guinea will host the 2012 Africa Cup of Nations before the next tournament is moved to 2013 — when it will take place in Libya — so as not to coincide with Brazil’s Soccer World Cup in 2014. – Sapa-AP