South Africa will host the 2013 Africa Cup of Nations in place of Libya, with the official statement confirming the news expected to be released before the end of the week.
This was revealed by a top South African Football Association (Safa) official on Tuesday, hours after the Confederation of African Football (CAF) meeting held in Cairo, where the rights for the 2013 event were also on the agenda of the annual executive committee gathering.
“I can confirm that South Africa has been given the rights after a meeting was held a few hours ago,” said the official.
This means that the continental soccer body, CAF, has South Africa — who were set to host in 2017 — swapping events with politically-troubled Libya. This follows their much debated agreement with the North African country’s football federation to exchange events, and signed last month.
Initially, there were fears that South Africa would not be given the bi-annual event in two years’ time when Safa went public about their agreement with Libya, giving impressions that the deal was made without CAF’s consent.
Also, when the rights were given to Angola (2010), Equatorial Guinea and Gabon (2012) and Libya (2013), Nigeria was placed as the reserve country, in case any of the above hosts were not able to meet their obligations.
“Yes, there were initial fears and talks that we had jumped the gun about talking about South Africa hosting in place of Libya, but it has now been officially agreed by all parties.”
This will be the second time that South Africa will host the continental tournament having done so in 1996 — going on to win the trophy that year.
As part of the deal, South Africa is also expected to host the 2014 African Nations Championships tournament, again ahead of Libya.
The Bafana Bafana squad for their final 2012 tournament group qualifier match against Sierra Leone next Sunday at Mbombela Stadium in Nelspruit — a must-win game to stand a chance of qualifying — was named on Tuesday morning.
The team is second in Group G, a point behind Niger, who have assembled nine from five games, and play Egypt in Cairo in a simultaneous fixture. — Sapa