CAF president Dr Patrice Motsepe has urged Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda to set new benchmarks when they host the 2027 Africa Cup of Nations, challenging the East African trio to build on what he described as the most successful tournament in AFCON history.
Speaking in Rabat on the eve of Sunday’s final between hosts Morocco and Senegal, Motsepe hailed the just-concluded edition for its world-class football, stadiums and infrastructure, describing it as a standard future hosts must aspire to meet or surpass.
“This has been the single most successful AFCON in the history of the competition,” Motsepe told reporters. “The quality of the football has been world-class, as has the quality of the stadiums and the infrastructure.”
Morocco, which is preparing to co-host the 2030 FIFA World Cup alongside Spain and Portugal, could yet be in contention to stage the proposed 2028 AFCON as part of its preparations. Motsepe revealed that several countries have expressed interest in hosting that edition, but stressed that the 2027 tournament will proceed in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda as planned.
The three nations jointly staged the African Nations Championship last year, a competition reserved for locally-based players, although the event was delayed from early 2025 to August to allow additional time for facility upgrades.
Acknowledging the challenges involved, Motsepe said leadership often requires difficult decisions. “Part of being a leader is to deal with difficult and unpleasant decisions which we have to take,” the South African administrator noted.
He reaffirmed CAF’s commitment to developing football across the continent, insisting that major tournaments cannot be confined only to countries with established infrastructure. “I have a duty to develop football all over Africa,” Motsepe said. “I am confident that the AFCON in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania will be enormously successful. We are not going to take the competition away from these countries.”
The 2027 edition will be the first AFCON hosted in East Africa since Ethiopia staged the tournament in 1976. It will also precede a significant shift in the competition’s calendar, with AFCON set to move to a four-year cycle after 2027, having traditionally been held every two years since its inception in 1957.
Motsepe announced the controversial change on the eve of the Morocco tournament and dismissed suggestions that the decision was influenced by pressure from European clubs or world governing body FIFA.
“We have to free ourselves as Africans and not think whenever we take a decision it is because FIFA says this or Europe says this,” he said, while conceding that “there are times when you have to make concessions.”
