CAN East Africa Community 2014!

“It can happen”, “oh yeah it can, why not?—a friend was telling me recently how the people in this region stand a better chance to stage the Nations’ Cup “in not-so-distant future” as East African Community than individual states. This guy really took his time to convince me how the continent’s biggest football showpiece can ‘come home’. He started his point by asking me (probably from an ‘expert’ point of view) what it requires to host the Africa Cup of Nations or whether Rwanda can’t stage it as soon as the chance arose. And so, by bringing up such a subject for discussion (with me), this chap knew exactly what he was talking about because he’s one of those keen football (local and international) fans I’ve ever met. I didn’t wait for him to bombard me with all the questions he ‘had for me’ and I told him right in his face, “Rwanda can’t host the Nations’ Cup, not now, not in the near future”, then later confirmed to him, “but this is my opinion”. He said, but why can’t we yet countries that are not far better off than us (Rwanda), he gave an example of Burkina Faso and Mali that have staged it and the continent enjoyed? One part of me wanted to agree with him but the other disagreed, reason(s) being, I told him, we don’t have the infrastructure (yet) to convince the guys at CAF that, hey guys look here we’re ready. I told him, the way I see it, you (a given country that intends to host CAN) should at least have two or three stadiums that meet international standards to start with, but with the money to build one or two more, which should certainly be better (than the old ones) in time for the tournament’s kick-off. Guaranteed security is an overriding factor in backing your campaign, in addition you must have high standard accommodation facilities and lastly I told him, the political atmosphere also plays a major role in swinging the vote in your favour. And unfortunately, here, in Rwanda, we don’t meet all those conditions—security-wise, we’re okay, the political atmosphere swings the vote in our favour but we don’t have the infrastructure, I further shared my opinion with him and apparently he seemed to buy most of my points. With the stadiums, only one (Amahoro) meets at least the minimum international standards but a lot is still needed to make it even much better, as for Nyamirambo, there surely still have a long way to turn into an internationals standard stadium. After a long discussion on whether Rwanda is able to host CAN in the near future or not and with my points already sunk in his head, this chap then came up with the idea of co-hosting and which country is the best to strike a deal with. With already an hour or so gone and we had not settled for any suitable country in particular, which Rwanda can bid to co-host with, all of a sudden I came up with the idea of bidding as East Africa Community (EAC) and not individual states. At the start of the discussion, we talked at length about CAN Ghana 2008 and how they (Ghana) tested their hosting ability with a join bid with Nigeria for the 2000 edition. And so we zeroed on the idea of how about if Rwanda, being the only country in the region that seems to have the desire to gamble with such an idea of hosting CAN at one point in time in a not-so-distant future try that route. For starters, a living example of such ‘bravery’ is Rwanda hosting the Africa Youth Championship of the U-20 level in 2009. Which other country in the region has done that before? CAN is played between 16 countries with four teams in each group, so how about four teams in each of the four countries (Rwanda, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda), two quarterfinal matches in each hosting country. The two semifinal fixtures played in the two countries with the best infrastructure and the final in the country that meets best all the required conditions. However, the only factor that would block this four nation bid would be only if CAF members fail to agree to endorse an unprecedented move to award four automatic qualification slots to the four hosts. Long live my football friend (you know who you’re) for coming up with the discussion about this particular topic, I really enjoyed it and I believe a CAN championship can go a very long way in selling our region (in good light) to the ‘outside’ world. C’mon EAC go for it, we can make it happen if 2014 is at a short-notice, then 2016 could be our chance to show the ‘outside’ world what they’re missing from the region where we see sun before anyone else on the continent. Contact: nku78@yahoo.com