recently announced that Congo will host the 2020 Women's Championship. http://www.cafonline.com/en-US/NewsCenter/News/NewsDetails?id=uLxLJ117lJ7E68bnx/VQWg==
Kenya replaces Equatorial Guinea after winning their appeal against an ineligible player who was from Cameroon.
Kenya's protest over Equatorial Guinea upheld over the use of an ineligible player. Equatorial Guinea faces suspension again while Kenya will appear in the 2018 Women's Championship. http://footballkenya.org/harambee-starlets-appeal-upheld-caf/
Well, this video is out-of-date now. But it's still the greatest thing ever. So, the Ghanaian mascot is named as Agrohemaa (Game Queen) the Eagle, and the theme song is titled "We Are Champions", but it now has an added headache – being edited to change the countries in the lyrics! Just now there's a pre-tournament refs' training camp in Cape Coast, where the stadium was inspected yesterday (Oct 18) by CAF. Thanks for the news! According to Taifa Leo news yesterday, there's still no word of CAF's decision about the "Alleged Algeria Ineligibility" tongue-twister. This'll be Kenya's second tournament of 2018, after July's CECAFA East African cup, which Tanzania won – with a 4th-place finish for Kenya (Harambee Starlets). And Kenya had only beaten their neighbours Uganda 1-0 on aggregate in AWCON qualifying. There must be loads of teams who are on the edge of reaching the Cup of Nations.
Just to make sure I've got it right (since I don't think it's been spelled out on this thread): is this tournament the one who's going to qualify three African teams for WWC 2019?
Yes. Every continent except for UEFA uses its continental championship to determine WWC qualifiers. (CAF is a bit different in that the have their continental championship every 2 years instead of every 4, though, so only every other tournament matters for WWCQ.)
Draw result: Group A- Ghana Algeria Mali Cameroon Group B- Nigeria South Africa Zambia Kenya I would say this is going to be a straightforward tournament. But after Mexico and CR got bounced out of qualifying in Concacaf, it's possible that it may not be as predictable. One can only hope.
Technically no. Based on rankings Zambia and Kenya are the two lowest ranked teams. Be interesting to see if there's any upsets.
Algeria were in action in friendlies in Morocco, on Oct 18 and 22, in Kenitra and Maâmora. Morocco won the first game 3-1, Algeria won the second 1-0. Match report (English autotranslated, Footofeminin / French original / Archived) Morocco were the 7th-highest ranked team in the competition, but got an unlucky pairing with Ivory Coast (6th-highest), and Morocco went out in qualifying round 1 on away goals. The hosts Ghana are playing a few friendlies against AWCON teams, starting with Zambia on Saturday.
Problems, real problems: Kenya risk missing out on the tournament - www.standardmedia.co.ke/sports/article/2001301837/harambee-starlets-risk-missing-out-on-africa-cup-of-nations (Archived) Nigeria players are angry with the Nigeria Football Federation: - www.newtelegraphng.com/2018/11/awcon-2018-falcons-players-lament-shoddy-preparations-players (Archived) In other news, I don’t know much about Kenya, admits Nigeria coach (then he could probably write 10,000 posts in this forum) And the referees and officials have been chosen. Info here: - www.kawowo.com/2018/11/03/25-referees-selected-for-2018-awcon-finals-in-ghana (Archived)
Well, Kenya doesn't have to worry about showing up now. Equatorial Guinea back in. http://www.cafonline.com/en-US/News...RhVRg==&utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
It looks like CAF went with: Eq. Guinea has the money to travel and Kenya doesn't...so let's overrule our decision and green light Eq. Guinea again
That's what I'm thinking. Plus Kenya won't face a ban for the 2020 tournament with this, so I'm sure they'll be quiet about it.
Kenya FF statement Kenya appeal process to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) may stop tournament from commencing until matter is resolved. Bold move. I wonder is it really fight for inclusion of Harambee Startlets to AWCON or is Kenya FF aiming to get some money remuneration from CAF...
Doubt the tournament gets ppd. since the World Cup draw is set for Dec. 8. CAF screwed up big time with this one. They should just have both Kenya & Equatorial Guinea play, maybe re-draw the groups? Or do three groups of 3 each?
It hasn't happened for a senior WC yet that I know of, but they've done draws for major tournaments w/o knowing the full participant list before; they'd just use "CAF 1, CAF 2, CAF 3" in place of actual countries. They can certainly get away with it since, of the nations currently qualified, there are only two nations (Chile and Jamaica) ranked lower than CAF's strongest, Nigeria, (and Chile just barely, so IDK if games since the last publishing would push them over Nigeria anyway). So even if Panama qualifies from the CON^2 playoff, all three CAF nations would still be in Pot 4.