Caf picks Morocco to replace Kenya as Chan hosts

Morocco has been awarded the hosting rights of the 2018 African Nation Championship (Chan), replacing the previous designated host, Kenya.

The three week football bonanza will run from January 12 – February 4, 2018 and will be played in four venues in the North African country.

The decision to award Morocco the rights were made by the Confederation of African Football (CAF) on Saturday after an executive committee meeting held in Lagos, Nigeria.

In its meeting, the executive committee rubberstamped its decision to hand Morocco the second-tier football competition while also affirming its earlier decision to strip Kenya of the rights.

Kenya won the bid to host the competition in 2014 but sluggish work on the earmarked venues made Caf strip the country of the rights after numerous inspection tours gave  “a not ready” verdict.

For Morocco, the nod to host the competition is a thumb of approval following a Caf ban three years ago after it declined to host the African Cup of Nations finals citing Ebola fears.

Morocco have not hosted a senior CAF competition since the 1988 Africa Cup of Nations. Equatorial Guinea successfully replaced them at short notice, having co-hosted the Cup of Nations with Gabon three years earlier.

Chan is restricted to home-based footballers, giving them international exposure otherwise largely denied because most African national squads are packed with professionals playing in Europe.

Equatorial Guinea and Ethiopia had also showed interest in hosting the competition.

Additional reporting by AFP