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African Roundup Egypt tipped to host 2006 Nations CupPosted: Wednesday October 23, 2002 6:54 AMUpdated: Wednesday October 23, 2002 1:51 PM CAIRO (Reuters) -- Egypt is tipped to be named Thursday as host of the 2006 African Nations Cup, which is the continent's qualifying tournament for the World Cup finals to be held in Germany later that year. Egypt heads a list of four countries bidding to host the tournament but are expected to win ahead of Algeria and the Ivory Coast, where there is political uncertainty, and Libya, who lack facilities. The executive committee of the Confederation of African Football (CAF) will hear 30-minute submissions from the four candidate countries Thursday before voting on a final decision. Egypt has proposed 12 different venues for the tournament but Cairo, Alexandria, Port Said and Ismailia are the most likely venues. Egypt has hosted the final three times before, the last time in 1986. Algeria, who hosted the event in 1990, have proposed six venues for the 16-team tournament -- the capital Algiers, Annaba, Blida, Constantine, Oran and Tlemcen. But CAF insiders have said the on-going civil strike in the north African country was likely to count against them. The same holds for the Ivory Coast, which last month suffered a military rebellion. Military uprising Roger Ouegnin, in Cairo at the head of the Ivorian bid, agreed that the situation in his country was "very difficult" but said he was confident of a recovery once the military uprising had ended. The Ivorians have proposed seven venues -- Abengourou, Abidjan, Gagnoa, Korhogo, San Pedro, Yamoussoukro and Bouake, which government forces recaptured from rebels just two weeks ago. Few details were available on Libya's bid but the maverick state previously hosted the Nations Cup in 1992 when the final in Tripoli was played on artificial turf. Libyan football has taken a high profile recently under Saad Gaddafi, the son of the country's ruler, who has played for the country's national team. He owns a major club and is also president of the football association. The 2006 finals will be used for the first time as qualifiers for the World Cup after a decision taken at the CAF Congress in Bamako in January. Africa has five places at the 2006 World Cup finals with presumably the four semifinalists at the 2006 Nations Cup qualifying. But CAF has yet to come up with a formula to determine the fifth place. FIFA: African nations asked to bid for 2010 World CupZURICH, Switzerland (AP) -- World soccer governing body FIFA on Wednesday opened the campaign to host the 2010 World Cup, asking African nations to submit their bids. FIFA said it had written to the 52 member countries of CAF, the African soccer confederation, telling them they had until Dec. 31 to declare an interest in hosting the tournament. They then will be asked to reconfirm their interest by April 30, 2003. Those countries that do so will have until Aug. 31, 2003, to submit their bid documents, FIFA said. Inspection teams will later visit each prospective host country and report back to the organization's ruling executive. The final decision will be taken in May 2004. Only African nations are being allowed to bid for the 2010 World Cup because FIFA's executive decided last year that the competition should rotate between the continental soccer confederations. African nations were angered in July 2000 when Germany beat South Africa for the 2006 tournament by 12 votes to 11 after a last-minute abstention by New Zealand's delegate. Nigeria lines up friendly against EgyptLAGOS (Reuters) -- Nigeria will play Egypt in a friendly international next month, officials said on Wednesday. Taiwo Ogunjobi, secretary-general of the Nigerian FA, said on Wednesday that the friendly will take place in Lagos on November 25. "The Egyptian warm-up replaces the one which was scheduled for November 20 against Bolivia," Ogunjobi told reporters. "The Bolivian FA sent us a fax pulling out of the match for no reason. So agreed to Egypt's request for a game." He added that the Nigerian team would return the favor next February when they travel to Cairo for another friendly. Only players from domestic clubs will be considered for the Nigerian team. Both teams are using the matches in preparation for the
African Nations Cup qualifiers.
Copyright 2003 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. |
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