Two-horse race for African Nations vote
JOHANNESBURG - The 2015 and 2017 African Nations Cup hosts will be decided on Saturday but with the same two candidates vying for both editions, the Confederation of African Football (CAF) will only decide on who gets which year.
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Morocco and South Africa are the only countries in the running for the two tournaments after the withdrawal from the race of the Democratic Republic of Congo, leaving the CAF's 15-man committee to select a tournament for each nation to host.
Both have expressed a preference for the 2015 edition and a low-key bidding campaign will culminate in both countries making 30-minute presentations to the executive when they meet in the southern Congolese city of Lubumbashi.
"We obviously want to host the tournament in 2015 so we can sustain some of the momentum from hosting the World Cup," South African Football Association president Kirsten Nematandani told Reuters.
A statement from Morocco's football federation said they sought the hosting of the Nations Cup sooner rather than later in line with a strategy to "reach a new plateau for our national football and progressively introduce professionalism".
Morocco and South Africa were engaged in a much fiercer battle for the right to host the 2010 World Cup, which South Africa won 14-10 in a tight vote in Zurich in 2004.
Next year's African Nations Cup finals are being co-hosted by Equatorial Guinea and Gabon. Thereafter, the tournament will be played every odd year with a 2013 tournament already designated to Libya.
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