Algeria and Morocco have a contentious political relationship, which has entered the realm of football this year.
Morocco and Algeria are two potential host countries for the 2025 and 2027 Africa Cup of Nations tournaments.
Morocco and Algeria are favorites to be named hosts for the 2025 and 2027 Africa Cup of Nations tournaments. 2027 respectively, with an announcement to be made on Wednesday in Cairo.
Both are seeking to organize the 2025 edition of Africa’s premier sporting event, alongside Zambia and a joint Nigeria-Benin bid.
Algeria also participated in the 2027 contest, as did Botswana, Egypt, Senegal and a combined Kenya-Tanzania-Uganda challenge.
After several delays passed without the hosts being revealed, a senior official from the Confederation of African Football (CAF) told AFP that “the two hosts will be definitively designated on September 27.”
Executive committee members will vote after studying each candidate’s independent assessments for 2025 and 2027, but politics and the promise of regional rotation have complicated matters.
North African neighbors Algeria and Morocco have a contentious political relationship, which has entered the football arena this year.
The ban on Moroccan planes flying over Algeria has led to the withdrawal of the team representing the kingdom from the 2022/2023 African Nations Championship (CHAN), reserved for home-based players.
Morocco had won the previous two editions and when its request to travel directly to Algeria was refused, it boycotted the tournament, thus depriving one of the favorites of the title.
Both countries have superb stadiums and infrastructure and a football-loving population and are capable of staging world-class Nations Cup tournaments.
But both would like to be hosts in 2025. Fouzi Lekjaa, a Moroccan leader and CAF official, caused a stir mid-year when he told local politicians the kingdom would be chosen.
National media quoted him as saying that “the Fez stadium will have the honor of hosting the 2025 CAN (Nations Cup) matches when Morocco wins the organization.”
CAF president and South African billionaire Patrice Motsepe is well aware of the political rivalry between the neighbors.
“We must not get involved in what is happening between Algeria and Morocco. CAF must never intervene in politics,” he declared during the CHAN tournament.
Motsepe praised the organizational capabilities of the two countries, which have each hosted the Nations Cup once, Morocco in 1988 and Algeria two years later.
“Morocco has often hosted major competitions without a problem while CHAN in Algeria this year was the best ever,” he said.
During CHAN, Motsepe declared that he wanted each region to host the Nations Cup: “We cannot successively assign the organization of the CAN to the same region”.
However, several months later, CAF general secretary Veron Mosengo-Omba said regional rotation may not always be possible.
“Today, only five or six countries out of the 54 CAF members are able to apply to host the African Cup. Therefore, this alternation will not be possible,” he said.
What began in 1957 as a three-team tournament is now a 24-nation event featuring stars such as Mohamed Salah, Victor Osimhen, Andre Onana, Sadio Mane, and Hakim Ziyech.
Hosts must have a minimum of six stadiums – two with a capacity of at least 40,000 people and four capable of accommodating 20,000 spectators or more.
Ivory Coast will host the 2023/2024 Nations Cup, which was postponed from June and July this year to January and February next year to avoid the rainy season.
