Abstract

This study is based “The Impacts of hosting an African Cup of Nations to the host country». The impacts of hosting the AFCON on the host country. To bring out how the AFCON is organized and what are the challenges the hosts countries faces when organizing the tournament.

The research began with a background of the study were the researcher gave a brief history of the AFCON and then ahead stating the problem .In the course of the research, three research objectives were used .It involved the impacts of AFCON on the host country, the challenges the host countries faces in organizing the tournament and the advantages the host country and Africa will gain from an AFCON. Literature was reviewed in three ways which involved the empirical review, conceptual and theoretical review.

The researcher now  went  ahead to draft methodology of research in the next chapter .A questionnaire was then drafted and handed to 200 respondents in DOUALA which had a response rate of  99%. The questionnaire was divided into three parts which were demographics and the research question side . The data were analyzed with the use of tables and charts with the researcher choosing chi-square to test the hypothesis.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the study

The African Cup of Nations also called African Nations Cup is the most prestigious football competition in Africa. It is contested by national teams and is organized by the confederation Africaine de football (CAF).The competition ‘s  format over time ,with the number of teams increasing from in 1957 to 24  in 2019.Growing participation also led to the introduction of qualifying rounds in the 1968, the same year that CAF decided to hold the tournament biennially.

The African Cup of Nations was first held in February 1957 in khartoum,Sudan,  where Egypt won the trophy during the final against Sudan .The trophy was named ABDEL AZIZ ABDALLAH SALEM by it donor  the Egyptian (CAF) president by the time. The trophy was permanently awarded to GHANA in 1t978 when it became the first country to win the trophy 3 times. The next trophy known as AFRICA UNITY CUP, was awarded permanently to CAMEROON in 2000 when that team claimed its third championship since 1978 .In 2002 a new trophy which was called cup of nations was introduced.

The competition has help to show out the talents of African players all over the world. In the 1950’s and 1960’s the tournament attacking size and it entertainment and the imagination of African fans and attracted Europeans recruiters, agents and journalists. Under the leadership of Ethiopian president ydnekachew Tessema the leader from 1972 until his death in1987,the cup gained more international prestige and  professionalism and it made AFCON to gain corporate  sponsorship  by 1984.Among the cup greatest performance are SAMUEL  ET’OO of Cameroon ,who holds the record of most career  goals scored in the  Cup of Nations (18),and the Ivorian sticker Laurent Pokou ,who score five goals in a 6-1 victory over Ethiopia 1970.

Beyond the boundaries of the playing fields, the cup of nations has been a conduit for the articulation of political values and ideas. Having inherited colonial institutions devoid of indigenous symbols of national identity, many independent African governments invested considerable economic and political capital into a national football teams in order to elicit pride and build unity among their diverse populations. For example with the enthusiastic support of Ghana’s first president KWAME NKRUMAH, Ghana won the cup in 1963 and 1965.In winning the 1996 tournament at home, South Africa racially mixed team seemed to symbolize  football’s power to bridge the gapping social and economic inequalities left by apartheid.

In contrast, the  Algerian government was unable to capitalize on Algeria’s victory in the 1990 cup of Nations ,as a fan celebrated the teams triumphs in Algiers by chanting their support  for the  oppositions Islamic salvation front. Political tensions violently disrupted the cup of nations in 2010: the Togo team bus was attacked by the separatist gunmen as it into the Angolan exclave of cabanida on its way to the tournament; two teams officials and the bus driver were killed into the attack, and the Togolese team withdrew from the 2010 cup of nation, which was held with 15teams.

The AFCON came about after the creation of FIFA on may 21 1904, by seven national associations Belgium, Denmark, France, Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland to promote the game of association football, to foster friendly relations among national associations and confederations and their officials and players by promoting the organization of football matches at all levels and to control every type of association football by taking steps shall be deemed necessary or advisable.

After the creation of  FIFA they did meetings and growing and with globalisation they decided create continental associations and  other ones the first created was FIFA founded in 1904 which represents nations from around the world, and is the overall governing  body and recognised international football. Its premier tournament is the quadrennial FIFA World Cup.

Another global football association is the NF-board 18 members +14 provisional. Founded in2003 represents nations, dependencies unrecognized states, minorities, stateless peoples, regions and micro nations not affiliated to FIFA. Their main competition was the VIVA WORLD CUP.

As of January 2013 this organization has bed disbanded. Another global football association is Confederation of Independent Football associations-24 members founded in 2013 represents nations, dependencies, unrecognized states, minorities and regions not affiliated to FIFA.The main tournament is the CONIFA WORLD FOOTBALL CUP.

There are also many others continental associations that was created after the FIFA just like (CAF) for Africa there are many others that were settled some are Asian football confederation(AFC)-46 members +1 associate –founded in 1954,represents Asian nations in football. The main tournament is the AFC Asian cup. The CONACAF confederation of north, Central American and Caribbean Association football -35 members +6 associate founded in 1961 represents north American, central American and Caribbean nations.

The main tournament is the CONACAF gold cup.CONMEBOL confederacion sudamericana de futbol-10members founded in 1916 represents south American nations in football .The main tournament is the Copa America.OFC Oceania football confederation 11 members +3 associate founded in 1966 represents  Oceania nations in football .The main tournament is the OFC nations cup.

The union of European football association’s -55 members is the biggest continental association founded in 1954 their main tournament is the European Championship known as UEFA Euro. The confederation that organizes the AFCON confederation Africaine de football(CAF) of -54 members and +2 associate founded in 1957represents African nations in football. The main tournament is the AFRICAN CUP OF NATIONS(AFCON).(Wikipedia on the AFCON).

This is from where the idea continental tournament came to and now the AFCON is one of the most mediated tournament in the world because it bring African states together it brings big players and stars in African journalists from all the world ,world recruiters and agents and it shows big and good football in Africa. The AFCON is now well respected world wide as the UEFA euro and the COPA America alit is due to media and globalization and this event helps to keep Africa one.

Since the 1962 edition the AFCON has been held in two phase: a qualification phase and a final tournament. The host country of the final tournament is automatically qualified, and in the first editions the defending champion was also qualified for the following tournament. the qualification phase evolved overtime according to the confederation of African football (CAF).It was set up from 1962, during the first two editions Africa cup of Nations, the founding nation participated to the final tournament, namely Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan.

In 1962, new nations were affiliated and forced CAF to set up a qualifying phase for the final tournament in the form of knockout matches. This system was used until the 1992 edition, when the organization of the qualifying phase became closer to that of the UEFA European championship ,with qualifying groups of four to seven team depending on the editions where each selection  plays a round-trip opposition against its opponents ,the qualified country being decided according to the classification within it group.

For final phase only the hosts received an automatic qualification spot with the other 23 teams qualifying through a qualifying tournament. At the finals, the 24 teams were drawn into six groups of teams each. The teams in each group played a single round robin

After the group stage ,the top two teams and the four best third-placed  teams advanced to the round of 16.The winners advance to quarter finals then semifinals then finals the losers of semi finals

The targeted people of the study shall be future countries who shall be organizing the AFCON. So my first target population should be the government of ivory coast who shall be the next hosts of the AFCON so in my work there will learn from the errors of ancient hosts Cameroon ,Egypt ,Gabon ,Equatorial guinea and Zambia which are  the latest hosts of the tournament mostly from Cameroon because during their hostage they changed the participants from 16 to 24 so there a great increase in work and labor .So the  targeted population will see in my work what they may easily gain when hosting an AFCON and what may be their possible difficulties to host the tournament  and how will they make to not make the same mistakes as the recent hosts.

The work will help them in both the social economic political advantages of hosting the tournament, how to win the trophy, how to participate the amount of money the winners may gain, how the population will gain from the tournament.

The work will also interest researchers who want to know more about the African biggest tournament and to know more the organization and the format the qualification phase and the final phase. What are the rules to be a participant why some countries was supposed to play the competition after did not play .why the tournament changed from even to odd numbers, who are the biggest winners of the tournament and why they increased participants. The target here is all football fans and Africans to know about their biggest completions who are the biggest players the most goal scorer and all to know about the competition.

On this the audience may have different researches’ on the if the audience is an individual he may be looking on the history and the  background of the work and how it evolved to be what  is now and who are having records of the tournament and who are the biggest players of the tournament and their career why if it’s  a group or a country they may look on the global view of the tournament on how there can learn from the evolvement of the competition how there will be gaining and some future organizers may be interested by the work to host their own tournament in a better way.

We can see and example in the latest AFCON who took place in Cameroon. This was the 33rd edition of the Total energies AFCON ,the second organized by Cameroon after the 1972 edition won by Congo .24 teams was to try to win the most famous African football tournament in Africa and the victorious team was  Senegal who won the final against Egypt.

51 teams participated in the elimination phase initiated in October 2019 with a view to participating in the final phase.24 teams then competed in the group stage in the host country. At the end of the 50th match. The names of the two finalists were known: Senegal and Egypt. This undecided final between the unfortunate finalist of 2019 and the record holder of victories in the competition brought players and spectators to the penalty shootout. The epilogue of this final turned then to be favorable to Senegal who won their first total energies African cup of nations on this occasion. Senegal thus became the 15th nation to enter its name on the list of winners of the AFCON. Egypt continues to lead the way with seven wins, followed by Cameroon with 5 wins and Ghana 4.

So many personal view is said that the can was corrupted or controlled by the Cameroon government and la CAF in their advantage while  the public view was general and normal as seen as the cases of Covid19 cases in the team of Comoros on the turn of 16 it made a bipolemique and some journalist wrote against Cameroon while its clear that the  Covid tests was done by the CAF (neutral) doctors from all the countries in Africa .The general view of states was different because there had the good and understood what happened .The individuals play a big  role in the decision of the public or of groups so it starts by the public opinion.

The personal view of most Cameroonians was that the AFCON was a very the most well organized one because it was the version that means it was played with 24 instead if 16 as other ones and it was prepared by the Cameroon government because we saw the beautiful stadiums and the hotel that was constructed for the occasion and it was well done.

his AFCON is said to be the most mediates AFCON because many TV stations worldwide like (canal+, Beinsports, Rfi ,prime video)there  were in Cameroon for the occasion it call the attention of many countries many stars and Artist where in Cameroon for the occasion like(Fally ipupa,tony yoka ,soprano,rhoff) to support their countries and global view may be a good one because before some club refused African players to attend the AFCON for them to stay and help their club but as now as the competition has evolved completely that decision will be quite difficult and it’s an evolvement for African football.

Even due to the covid19 pandemic disease and the restrictions the tournament was still well organized by the Cameroon government there respected the sitting restrictions given World health organization and la CAF and there partition the tournament all round the country into 6 of the 10 regions and with 6 well-built stadium for the occasion.

1.2 Statement of  the problem

My work will seeks to know why African countries are willing to organize the AFCON what are the advantages they will gain from the hosting of the tournament both economic, political and social benefits and what are the difficulties they are facing when organizing these tournaments and the impacts the tournament will have on their country.

The difficulties of African states when organizing the AFCON are many due  to the underdevelopment in the country and the poverty rate, as the new rules of the CAF says the hosting country should have a minimum level of well built stadiums and hotels for the players to sleep there, the level of poverty of our continent will force African states to borrow abroad to construct their stadiums as in the case of Cameroon who to construct the Japoma stadium of Douala borrowed 70million Euros to Italy which the debt is still not covered.

We can see that the corrupted minds of African retarded the construction of the stadium because the workers were not paid frequently the controllers over billed for materials we can see that the bag of cement which is 4500f was billed 16000f for one for the construction of the stadium.

We see that due to the evolvement of the AFCON the African countries had more difficulties organizing the competition and most AFCONs were postponed or changed hosts before time as seen as Cameroon was supposed to organize the AFCON 2019 but because there was not prepared it was pushed to 2021 who finally took place in January 2022 and ivory coast who was the country supposed to organize the 2021 AFCON was pushed to 2023 still due to unpreparedness its one of the great problems African states encountered when organizing AFCON because Africa is seen to be a poor continent.

1.3 Research Questions

1. What are the impacts of hosting AFCON on the hosting country?
2. What are the challenges African states faced when hosting the AFCON?
3. What are the developments AFCON has to bring to Africa since its creation in 1957?

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