CHAN 2020: A Gambian reporter’s take

By Pascal M Camara

members of Cameroon’s CHAN loc - photo source: CAF facebook page

Morocco beat Mali 2-0 on Sunday, February 7 to be crowned successive champion of the first international football tournament in the world since covid-19 shook the world, the CHAN. The 6th edition of the African Cup for players playing on the continent was played in Cameroon. The tournament, which was planned for 2020, was moved to 2021 due to the pandemic. Soufiane Bouftini, who plays for Hassania Agadir in the Moroccan League, scored the first in the 69th minute. Ten minutes later, Captain Ayoub El Kaabi of Wydad AC put the match out of reach of the Mali Eagles in the Cameroonian capital, Yaoundé. Morocco also became the first country to win the tournament in two consecutive editions, after it hosted it in 2018.

Mali lost in the final of the tournament for the second time, after losing 3-0 to Dr. Congo in 2016. The host of this edition, Cameroon, lost the semi-final 4-0 to Morocco, and third place 2-0 against Guinea on Saturday in Douala. Cameroonian football icon Samuel Etó presented the trophy for best player in the tournament and top scorer with 5 scorers, Soufiane Rahimi of Raja Casablanca. Rahimi failed to beat his Captain's 9-goal mark in 2018 in Casablanca.

Of the continent's 54 countries, only 16 play the tournament after regional qualifiers. The first edition played in Ivory Coast consisted of 8 countries. The African Football Confederation (CAF) sees the tournament as an option to increase the interest of fans on the continent, and decrease the attention and flow of the continent's talent to other leagues.

The tournament, a sign of the evolution of African Football

The coronation of back-to-back winners Morocco, once again, shows the strength of the African leagues. Dr. El. Congo won the tournament twice in the first edition in 2009 and 2016. TP Mazembe, one of the best clubs on the continent, with five African champions league titles, comes from Dr. Congo.  The other 2 countries that have won the tournament were North Africans, Tunisia in 2011, Libya in 2014.

Another novelty of the tournament was that for the first time there were female referees, who took charge of an older match in a men's tournament. Ethiopian Lidya Tafessa and her assistants Bernadettar Kwimbira of Malawi and Mimisen Lyorhe of Nigeria were in charge of one of the quarter-final matches between Morocco and Rwanda in the city of Duala. The referees had been in charge of matches in other lower tournaments belonging to under-23s, 20s and 17s. 

The suspended PRESIDENT of CAF Ahmad Ahmad attended the end, after he was exonerated by the arbitral tribunal of the SPORT CAS to aspire, for the second time, to the presidency of CAF. The tournament in Cameroon was a bell scene for the 4 contenders of this year's March 12 election in Morocco. The other challengers, Augustin Senghor of Senegal, South African millionaire Patrice Motsepe, Ahmed Yahya of Mauritania and Jacques Anouma of Ivory Coast also had in Cameroon to convince the presidents of national federations present.

The opening of the tournament was witnessed by FIFA President Gianni Infantino and other African football icons such as Senegalese El Hadji Diouf.

The international football tournament in the pandemic

The African Football Confederation regarded the tournament as a "test" of hosting football tournaments in the pandemic. Among the restrictions, only 227 journalists from 33 countries were credited to cover the tournament. All journalists in the tournament must present a negative 72-hour PCR test at the entrance of each stadium in order to access the stadium and the press area, also to the mixed area.

For fans, only 25% was stadium capacity is allowed, they were be filled from the start of the tournament to the quarterfinals. Ahmadou AhidjoStadium, with  a capacity of 40,000 people, was filled to only 15% with 10,000 spectators due to restrictions imposed by the organizing committee. To date, Cameroon has recorded just over 31,000 cases, nearly 30,000 recovered and 474  covid-19dead, according to official figures. The next edition of the CHAN tournament will be played in the north of the African continent. After the cup was delivered to Morocco, Cameroon's Prime Minister Joseph Ngute handed over the CAF flag to the Ambassador of Algeria to Cameroon Toufik Milat.

Note: Article first written in Spanish translated to English