Countries Slug It Out for Can 2008 Hosting Rights

Deputy Education, Youth and Sports Minister Rashid Bawa was in Cairo last week to drum up support for Ghana's quest to host the 2008 Africa Cup of Nations.

The website of the continental football governing body said the Ghanaian minister had conferred with the CAF president Issah Hayatou on the way forward in the development of football in Ghana in particular and Africa in general.

But with many of the continent's main power players gathered in Cairo during the period when the draw for the pan African club competitions was being held, Bawa had a unique opportunity to sell Ghana's bid.

Despite opposition from the Sports Writers Association of Ghana who insist that Ghana's interest would be better served by bidding for the All-Africa Games instead, the sports ministry and the Ghana Football Association is bent on going for the biennial African football competition.

So what are the selling points of Ghana's bid? The bid committee claims that this country has an impeccable history and sees the country, based in the Western part of Africa as the ideal venue for the tournament.

2008 would be the next tournament after the 2004 and 2006 editions, which are due to be hosted by North African countries.

Joe Aggrey, a deputy minister of Sports says Ghana has everything it takes to host the tournament even with just two standard stadiums in Accra and Kumasi.

That, of course won't be enough to host the African nations cup so the Ministry is proposing the construction of at least two more stadiums in Cape Coast and the northern part of Ghana.

It would be capital intensive but with the usual windfall of tourism capital and the legacy of superb infrastructure from major tournaments, the major decision makers at the sports ministry and Ghana football association consider the bid worth it.

But Ghana is not the only country that deems itself fit for the tournament. Algeria has expressed an interest but it is highly unlikely that the tournament would take in North Africa for six years.

There is Congo Democratic Republic but would the never ending civil war allow for that? It leaves Cote d'Ivoire and Ethiopia as perhaps the most credible challengers to the Ghana bid.

And the Ethiopians are bubbling with confidence and supreme in the belief that they would be hosting the Nations Cup in 2008.

Like Ghana, they have hosted the event before, three times in fact and like Ghana they were influential in the early years of African football playing a key role in the formation of CAF.

But they have fallen on hard times lately, have not appeared at the Nations cup in a long while, and won't be at next year's event in Tunisia.

That combined with its very poor economic situation and chronic food shortage makes them a hard sell for the outside world.

But the Ethiopians insist that is their biggest plus.

They see the hosting of the 2008 tournament as the catalyst that would propel the country's developmental efforts.

Ethiopian Football Federation Secretary-General, Abebow Kelkay, dismisses charges that investing in new stadia is the wrong way to spend the country's money.

"Football is one of the ways that enables people to live a productive life," he says. "Even the government's policy indicates that sport is one of the best instruments of development."

Nevertheless, Abebow admits that building three new venues and upgrading the two existing ones will be a challenge.

"We have some doubts about getting the stadia ready," he says, "but as long as we solve that problem, we're 100 per cent certain about the bid."

Abebow is confident Ethiopia has the necessary accommodation and media facilities, as the country has hosted the Nations Cup three times before, the last time being in 1976. It also hosted the African Youth Championships in 2001.

Rashid Bawa and his men bidding for the tournament would have their work cut out.