The 30 seconds edition of Africa Cup of Nations (CAN) 2019 is scheduled to be held from 15 June 2019 to 13 July 2019. This year Egypt has been selected for the host country of this year tournament. The announcement of the host country was declared on Tuesday through Confederation of African Football (CAF).
After the CAF Executive Committee meeting that was held on 24 January 2014, it was declared that for the 2019 edition, there will be 6 official candidates. Among the 6 official candidate countries such as Algeria, Guinea, and Ivory Coast also bid for hosting the Africa Cup of Nations for the year 2021.
The pronouncement of the host nation was postponed from early 2014 to allow every bidding country sufficient time to obtain the inspection allocation. After the final vote at the CAF Executive Committee meeting that was held on 20 September 2014, the CAF declared the host for 2019, 2021 as well as 2023 Africa Cup of Nations tournaments. Host for 2019 was given to Cameroon, 2021 to Ivory Coast and for the 2023 tournament, it was given to Guinea.
In the new bid process, CAF was looking for a new host for the Africa Cup of Nations 2019 after removing Cameroon from hosting this tournament. The bid was between Egypt and South Africa. On 8 January 2019, Egypt won the bid from South Africa with 16 votes in Dakar Senegal for the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations.
This year in the Africa Cup of Nations 2019 tournament, the teams are expanded from 16 to 24 teams and therefore there will be the total number of 16 venues that are expected to be used. On this concern, CAF has already established the following needs for the stadiums.
As Egypt is hosting the tournament, so, there are high chances of winning the title for their team. Previously, Egypt has also hosted the tournament 5 times. Out of these 5 times, one of them was as the United Arab Republic (UAR). Their team has won 3 times out of the 5 tournaments held in their country.
The Africa Cup of Nations 2019 is also known as the Total 2019 Africa Cup of Nations. This is going to be the 32nd edition of the Africa Cup of Nations. It is basically the biennial international men’s football championship of Africa and the Confederation of African Football (CAF) organizes these tournaments.
This year the tournament has moved from January/February to June/July for the first time as per the CAF Executive Committee decision on 20 July 2017. Therefore this year, the Africa Cup of Nations 2019 tournament will be held between 15 June and 13 July 2019.
Each team in the tournament can register a squad of 23 players. Only the host country team will get an automatic qualification spot. The other 23 teams have to battle against other teams through the qualification tournament.
At the finals, the 24 teams will get drawn into 6 groups of 4 teams. Each team in each group have to play a single robin round. The top 2 teams after group stage, as well as the 4 best 3rd teams, will get qualified to the round of 16. The winners of round 16 will qualify for the quarter-finals and the quarter-final winners will get into semi-finals. The winners of the semi-finals will play for the ultimate final round while the loser team of the semi-final will play for the 3rd place match.
