–<\/p>\n
The South African government and football associations have both stated emphatically that hosting the 2015 African Cup is not an option.<\/p>\n
Fikile Mbalula, the Minister of Sports and Recreation released a statement on his official Twitter account on Friday morning to deal with the speculation that South Africa could yet go in for the event.<\/p>\n
The statement is as follows<\/strong>:<\/p>\n “We have noted media reports relating to South Africa possibly hosting African Nations Cup in place of Morocco in January 2015.<\/em><\/p>\n It has been widely reported on the media that Morocco is alleged to have cancelled the hosting of the tournament on basis of Ebola fears and that South Africa could step in as a host.<\/em><\/p>\n We must put it categorially clear that SAFA has not approached the Minister with regard to this possibility.<\/em><\/p>\n Nevertheless as the Minister also reiterated during interviews throughout this week, there are just too many factors to consider for South Africa if we are too host a tournament of this magnitude.<\/em><\/p>\n Our major concern of course remains the cost implications of such a tournament when South Africa is currently grappling with its own fiscal challenges. A tournament of this nature, if planned outside the normal budgetary cycle, will require budgetary adjustments, a process that is currently not an option.<\/em><\/p>\n The tournament, as is also a concern for Morocco and many other countries in the world, may also pose a challenge on how we can grapple with the Ebola challenge engulfing the continent at the moment.<\/em><\/p>\n We will however await pronouncements from SAFA on this matter and respond factually once all facts are put before us<\/em>.”<\/p>\n Danny Jordaan speaks<\/strong><\/p>\n Meanwhile, SAFA president Danny Jordaan has quashed any hopes that his country will host the event.<\/p>\n \u201cAFCON 2015 will not be held here. That issue does not exist and CAF must discuss this matter with Morocco,\u201d Jordaan said at a press conference at SAFA House.<\/p>\n [contextly_sidebar id=”uh4db2gIZFfh4x6R8qTtMUAwpLwZ45mE”]\u00a0Ghana still undecided<\/strong><\/p>\n This tilts the hosting of the event Ghana’s way even though public opinion is weighed heavily against intentions to that effect by local authorities.<\/p>\n On Thursday, Ghana’s sports minister Mahama Ayariga told Citi News that government is considering CAF’s request to take over the tournament should Morocco renege on their commitment.<\/p>\n The north African nation had earlier requested CAF to postpone the tournament which was set for January next year, due to the Ebola epidemic.<\/p>\n Ayariga says a decision will be made shortly.<\/p>\n –<\/p>\n By: Gary Al-Smith\/Citifmonline.com\/Ghana<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" – The South African government and football associations have both stated emphatically that hosting the 2015 African Cup is not an option. Fikile Mbalula, the Minister of Sports and Recreation released a statement on his official Twitter account on Friday morning to deal with the speculation that South Africa could yet go in for the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":57356,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[3,38],"class_list":["post-57351","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-ghana-news","tag-palaver-newspaper"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57351","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=57351"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57351\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/57356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=57351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=57351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=57351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}