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Although South Africa will go toe-to-toe with Egypt as the only two nations bidding to host next year’s Afcon finals, government still wants full details of what it would be committing to if it backed Safa in this exercise.
Sports Minister Tokozile Xasa and Safa president Danny Jordaan met this week, but she has not been given the full details to present to Cabinet.
Xasa’s spokesperson, Vuyo Mhaga, yesterday said: “The situation is that if they [CAF] want South Africa to come in, what does everything entail? [Safa] had a session with the minister, but she said we can’t commit state resources when we don’t know the details.”
Safa spokesperson Dominic Chimhavi said that, besides submitting the bid documents, Safa had written a letter asking CAF for clarity.
“We submitted the bid documents, but ... we have written to CAF because this is not a normal bid,” he said.
Last week, Xasa said that “it must not be like we are bidding”, fearing that there would be bidding costs.
“I was very clear to them [CAF] that if they come to us, it should appear as an offer,” said Xasa.
CAF turned to South Africa after Cameroon was stripped of the hosting rights due to a lack of preparedness.
It is estimated that hosting the expanded continental tournament will cost South Africa between $10 million (R144 million) and $12 million.
Although Egypt expressed interest in hosting the tournament, there is concern about security in that country, which has experienced high-profile terror attacks in the past.
On paper, South Africa is the odds-on favourite and has ready-made infrastructure to host the 24-nation tournament at short notice.
A minimum requirement is six stadiums to host the event – South Africa has 10 that were built for the 2010 World Cup.
CAF said the bidding process would be followed by on-site visits to complete the evaluation of the applicants.
Once the technical evaluation phase was complete, the CAF executive committee would decide who would replace Cameroon as the new host. CAF is expected to make a final decision on January 9.
The biennial continental showpiece runs from June 15 to July 13.
It will be the first time that Afcon features 24 teams, up from the initial 16.
