By Adedapo Adesanya
The President of the Confederation of African Football (CAF), Mr Patrice Motsepe, has disclosed that Nigeria and the Republic of Benin have indicated an interest in jointly hosting the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON).
The West African neighbours, who share a border, intend to replace Guinea as hosts of the highest football tournament on the continent.
Guinea, chosen in 2014 to stage the premier African national team tournament, withdrew last year after little progress had been made in preparing for the biennial event.
CAF officials will do inspection tours of all the candidates this month, with the winners to be announced on February 10.
The CAF president and South African billionaire businessman, Mr Motsepe, said the successful country or countries would offer the best “transport, logistics, hotels and beautiful stadiums”.
“Each region will have a chance to organise a CAN (Cup of Nations). We cannot assign the organisation of the CAN successively to the same region.”
Benin and Nigeria are in West Africa, as are the Ivory Coast, which will host the 2023 Cup of Nations.
They will contend against four other countries, viz Algeria, Morocco, South Africa, and Zambia.
Business Post earlier reported that Guinea’s inability to host 2025 AFCON was due to its infrastructural facilities not being ready enough to host the 24-team tournament.
Cameroon was stripped of the right to host the 2019 tournament because they weren’t considered ready, but they were awarded the 2021 tournament, which was won by Senegal.
Nigeria last hosted the continental tournament in 2000. It was co-hosted with Ghana, who jointly replaced Zimbabwe as host.
Modupe Gbadeyanka 
Dipo Olowookere