A member of the CHAN and AFCON Local Organising Committee insists that the country has not lost the hosting rights for the 2024 African Nations Championship (CHAN), set to be played from Saturday 1 to Friday 28 February 2025, due to a lack of ready stadia.Reports of the Confederation of African Football (CAF) striping Kenya the rights, and subsequently handing them over to Rwanda, emerged on Monday, although an official communication was not despatched from Cairo.Kenya won the rights to host the tournament, which is exclusively for local-based players, alongside neighbours; Uganda and Tanzania.##NAJAVA_MECA_8555165##Subsequently, the country settled on the 60,000-seater-Kasarani Stadium to host the matches with Nyayo being considered as an alternative as well.The Police Sacco Grounds and the Ulinzi Sports Complex were also being prepared as training venues for the tournament. The Ministry of Sports had earlier on committed to have Kasarani ready by the end of the month but the deadline was not met. ##NAJAVA_MECA_8555155##CAF is understood to have responded to the missed deadline by giving Kenya up to the end of December to have the facility and the training venues ready.A spot check at the venue last weekend painted a picture of a facility that is highly unlikely to tick all the boxes required to host a continental tournament.Government announces Kasarani Stadium completion dateAccording to People Daily Sports, CAF has settled on Rwanda to replace Kenya as one of the hosting countries for the tournament.”CAF has decided to pick Rwanda as the replacement of Kenya as co-host nation alongside Uganda and Tanzania for the CHAN tournament. Kenya can not beat the 31 December deadline to fully complete the renovation of the Moi International Sports Centre Kasarani and Nyayo Stadium, ” a CAF official told the publication.##NAJAVA_MECA_8555197##In a rejoinder, a member of the Local Organising Committee says the country has not lost the rights contrary to what has been widely shared on social media.”As far as I’m concerned we were given a deadline of 31st December which is yet to elapse, so I have seen the reports but we have not been communicated to about the stripping of rights,” said the official.The official confirmed that the unveiling of the Local Organising Committee (LOC) members will go on as planned as CAF had not formally withdrawn the rights. ##NAJAVA_MECA_8555197##”We will be having a launch of the Local Organizing Committee on Tuesday, so how can we launch a committee yet we have lost the hosting rights?The infrastructure team had a meeting today (Monday) which we were not privy to but by tomorrow we will have the full report from the team which will be communicated at the launch,” he added.If the worst is confirmed, it will not be the first time the country will lose hosting rights for the tournament due to a lack of accredited facilities. ##NAJAVA_MECA_8555124##Kenya lost the rights in 2018 as the country was caught up in a last-minute attempt to renovate Nyayo, Kasarani and construct Kinoru Stadium from scratch.If Rwanda is confirmed, it will be the second time for Kigali to host the tournament having staged the 2016 edition.Hussein Mohammed, Mariga officially assume officeIn what will anger football fans further is the casual approach Harambee Stars head coach Engin Firat took in the qualifiers as should Rwanda be confirmed, Kenya will not make the long-awaited debut in the tournament. Stars were eliminated from the qualifiers by the lowly-ranked South Sudan after suffering a 3-1 loss on aggregate in round one.
