Last week, the Ministry of Sports confirmed that Kenya has together with Uganda and Tanzania put in a bid to host the 2027 Africa Cup of Nations finals.This comes two months after the Kenyan cabinet approved the country’s bid. However, this is not the first time that the country has at the highest level shown interest in hosting such a major tournament.It is actually the third time and sadly in the last two times, it has come to naught. Flashback to 1996: Kenya gets the nod from the Confederation of African Football (CAF) to host the Africa Cup of Nations.Months before the tournament, former Kenyan President Daniel Arap Moi wrote to CAF informing them that the country is not ready to host the event.By writing the letter to CAF just before the second multi-par ty elections, it is believed that the former Kenyan President was not keen to host the tournament as this would have given the opposition mileage. At the time then opposition Member of Parliament Job Omino was the head of the then Kenya Football Federation (KFF).##NAJAVA_MECA_7220357##The tournament was eventually awarded to then independent South Africa who won it as Kenya stayed in the cold for two editions.In 2018, Kenya had the chance to redeem themselves by hosting the newly introduced African Nations Championships (CHAN) tournament but once again failed to do it.The tournament was awarded to Kenya in 2015 and they had at least three years to ensure they had the necessary infrastructure. But despite grand promises of the then Jubilee government to build five modern stadia it remained just that-empty promises.So in 2017, CAF took away the hosting rights and awarded the same to Morocco and Kenya was once again a spectator at the biggest stage of African football.Surprisingly, nothing has changed from 2017, when Kenya lost the bid to host the CHAN tournament. Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania’s Joint Bid for AFCON 2027 Confirmed by CAFWe still do not have stadiums that can host CAF tournaments. Infact among the three East African Countries, only Tanzania has one stadium that can host.For the bid to be successful this time around, the on-going renovations of existing facilities must be expedited and should be ready before the end of this year.The Kenyan President William Ruto must probably take a leading role in ensuring that the facilities are ready. In the past two failures such support from the highest office in the land was sorely lacking.My fear is that if nothing is done quickly, we will end up being a laughing stock of the entire continent – again.
