{"id":19982,"date":"2020-01-10T15:40:44","date_gmt":"2020-01-10T15:40:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.com\/nigeria\/?p=19982"},"modified":"2020-01-10T15:40:44","modified_gmt":"2020-01-10T15:40:44","slug":"nigeria-steps-up-with-offer-to-host-wafcon-2020-equatorial-guinea-also-interested","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/all-news\/nigeria-steps-up-with-offer-to-host-wafcon-2020-equatorial-guinea-also-interested","title":{"rendered":"Nigeria steps up with offer to host WAFCON 2020, Equatorial Guinea also interested"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>January 10 \u2013 The Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) has expressed interest in hosting this year\u2019s Women\u2019s Africa Cup of Nations after Congo-Brazaville withdrew from staging the tournament.<span id=\"more-117738\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The Confederation of African Football (CAF) president Ahmad Ahmad said that Equatorial Guinea are also interested in staging the tournament in an interview with French radio station RFI.<\/p>\n<p>Congo-Brazaville had been scheduled to host the tournament, but pulled out last July. Congolese sports minister Hugues Ngoelondele claimed the decision had been due to financial reasons, citing \u201cfinancial tensions\u201d after an assessment of the operational costs.<\/p>\n<p>The situation left CAF embarrassed and and in a race against time to find a new host for its flagship women\u2019s tournament after South Africa turned down CAF\u2019s request to step in as host. At the time, the South Africans were in the bidding race for the 2023 Women\u2019s World Cup and SAFA\u2019s executive committee unanimously declined CAF\u2019s request.<\/p>\n<p>The tournament, to be played in the second half of 2020, has been expanded to 12 teams for the first time \u2013 the previous eleven tournaments had been contested by eight countries.<\/p>\n<p>CAF are scheduled to take a decision on the hosts at their executive committee next week.<\/p>\n<p>Nigeria are the defending women\u2019s champions, but the West African country has not hosted a major finals since 2009 when Nigeria staged the U-17 World Cup. The hosts were beaten 1-0 by Switzerland in the final. In 1998, 2002 and 2006, Nigeria previously hosted the Women\u2019s Africa Cup of Nations. Lagos, Benin City, Asaba and Uyo have been cited as potential host cities.<\/p>\n<p>In 2018, Ghana were the last hosts. South Africa, Equatorial Guinea, Namibia and Cameroon have also organised the finals after it switched to a tournament format in 1998.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>January 10 \u2013 The Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) has expressed interest in hosting this year\u2019s Women\u2019s Africa Cup of Nations after Congo-Brazaville withdrew from staging the tournament. The Confederation of African Football (CAF) president Ahmad Ahmad said that Equatorial Guinea are also interested in staging the tournament in an interview with French radio station RFI. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":62,"featured_media":19983,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,18],"tags":[410,115],"class_list":["post-19982","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-sport","tag-caf","tag-nigerian-sports"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Nigeria steps up with offer to host WAFCON 2020, Equatorial Guinea also interested - Nigeria<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) has expressed interest in hosting this year\u2019s Women\u2019s Africa Cup of Nations after Congo-Brazaville\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/all-news\/nigeria-steps-up-with-offer-to-host-wafcon-2020-equatorial-guinea-also-interested\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Nigeria steps up with offer to host WAFCON 2020, Equatorial Guinea also interested\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) has expressed interest in hosting this year\u2019s Women\u2019s Africa Cup of Nations after Congo-Brazaville\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/all-news\/nigeria-steps-up-with-offer-to-host-wafcon-2020-equatorial-guinea-also-interested\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Nigeria\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2020-01-10T15:40:44+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sites\/3\/2020\/01\/WAFCON-winners.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"299\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"168\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"alico\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"alico\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/all-news\/nigeria-steps-up-with-offer-to-host-wafcon-2020-equatorial-guinea-also-interested#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/all-news\/nigeria-steps-up-with-offer-to-host-wafcon-2020-equatorial-guinea-also-interested\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"alico\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/#\/schema\/person\/50afd2ef4f0e900bd0a176404a8484a7\"},\"headline\":\"Nigeria steps up with offer to host WAFCON 2020, Equatorial Guinea also interested\",\"datePublished\":\"2020-01-10T15:40:44+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/all-news\/nigeria-steps-up-with-offer-to-host-wafcon-2020-equatorial-guinea-also-interested\"},\"wordCount\":299,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/all-news\/nigeria-steps-up-with-offer-to-host-wafcon-2020-equatorial-guinea-also-interested#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sites\/3\/2020\/01\/WAFCON-winners.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"CAF\",\"Nigerian sports\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"Sport\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/all-news\/nigeria-steps-up-with-offer-to-host-wafcon-2020-equatorial-guinea-also-interested#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/all-news\/nigeria-steps-up-with-offer-to-host-wafcon-2020-equatorial-guinea-also-interested\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/all-news\/nigeria-steps-up-with-offer-to-host-wafcon-2020-equatorial-guinea-also-interested\",\"name\":\"Nigeria steps up with offer to host WAFCON 2020, Equatorial Guinea also interested - 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