Africa Cup postponed due to possible disasters
The 2023 Africa Cup was originally scheduled to take place last summer in Cote d’Ivoire. However, a year before the tournament, the Confederation of African Football (CAF) changes the dates due to weather conditions.
In June 2022, after heavy rains, Côte d’Ivoire suffered the deadliest flood in the country’s history. More than ten people were killed, more than a hundred were injured in Abidjan, and across the country, water damaged 1,913 households, affecting more than 11,000 people.
“The uncertainty of climatic conditions in Côte d’Ivoire at this time of year, as evidenced by recent floods, has prompted the postponement of the tournament to January 2024,” a CAF statement read.
Although the African Cup has previously often been held in the winter, CAF decided to move to the summer in 2017 to avoid disrupting the schedules of European clubs. In 2019, the tournament took place from June to July in Egypt.
The 2021 African Cup (Cameroon) was originally planned for the summer, but due to possible heat, it was postponed to January-February 2021, and then to early 2022 due to the pandemic.
Thus, of the three tournaments, only one was held in the summer, and even then Egypt had difficulties due to the heat: the players’ union demanded that the number of water breaks be increased to four, and Nigerian forward Samuel Kalou suffered heatstroke in training.
Fortunately, there are no disruptions to both tournaments. This means that you can leave your predictions on the mostbet az website, and the luckiest of you will be able to earn big money from your knowledge.
Adventures around the organization of the African Cup have been varied before
For example:
In 2010, before the start of the tournament, the Togo team bus came under fire while crossing the Congo-Angolan border, killing three people. The team withdrew from the tournament.
In 2013, the day before the start, the players of the DR Congo national team went on strike due to problems with the payment of bonuses. But a day later they still played. True, in the end they still didn’t leave the group.
The 2015 tournament was supposed to be held in Morocco, but two months before the start it was moved to Equatorial Guinea. The Moroccans asked to move the deadline due to the Ebola epidemic in West Africa, but were refused, the team was disqualified, and the tournament was taken away.
Seven Cameroonian football players refused to go to the 2017 African Cup, including Joel Matip, Andre Onan and Andre-Frank Zambo-Anguissa (Matip explained that there was a terrible atmosphere in and around the national team). Then Eric-Maxim Choupo-Moting joined them. FIFA was considering whether to disqualify them for this, but Cameroon did it anyway – they won and came to the Confederations Cup in Russia.
The 2019 African Cup was supposed to be held in Cameroon, but about six months before the start this right was taken away due to significant delays in the construction of facilities for the tournament. Egypt hosted the tournament.
The subsequent African Cup was held in Cameroon. We have already talked about how it was postponed, but could have been cancelled due to organizational difficulties in the country and the spread of the omicron strain of coronavirus. And yet it took place at the beginning of 2022.
The Asian Cup was also postponed for two reasons
In 2019, China received the right to host the Asian Cup, the dates are from June 16 to July 16, 2023. The country pulled out of the tournament in May 2022 due to COVID-19 restrictions.
Australia, Indonesia, Qatar and South Korea submitted bids to host, but the first two later withdrew. On October 17, Qatar was chosen as the host. Accordingly, the dates have changed – now from January 12 to February 10, 2024 due to the too hot climate in Qatar in the summer.
In the 1990s, the Asian Cup was held in autumn and winter, and in the 2000s, in summer. The 2011 tournament was also held in Qatar and also in January. Four years later, Australia hosted the Asian Cup, also in January. In 2019, Asians played in the UAE – from January 5 to February 1.
Holding the tournament in Qatar now is an excellent decision for Asia, because just 13 months ago the country already hosted the World Cup, and all the infrastructure is ready.
Two small ones for 10-15 thousand spectators each will be added to the new Qatari stadiums; one of them was built in 2013, the other was reconstructed by this time. In general, there will definitely be no concern about the comfort of fans in stadiums and television screens.