Asia changes based on the country it is being held in, last one was iin UAE was in January in 2019, before that was in Australia in January 2015, 2011 in Qatar was January, 2007 was split between THailand, Malaysia, Vietnam and Indonesia was held in June but was a debacle as a lot of games got effected by rain, due to it being the wet season in Thailand and Vietnam.
Also they are more keen to move to January tournements as more of the Asian leagues run calander year, so it means outside of the Asian league dates and also they find more interest as June/July tournements are competing with European and South American internationals so it gives them more coverage to host them in January
āMy objective is to get money for football infrastructure, for players, club owners, stakeholders. We are talking about anything between $250m to $300m every year,ā Motsepe ( CAF president ) explained.
How is it corruption? It only looks like it if you ignore the rest of the context, which considering the state of African football, is perfectly reasonable.
Yes, itās completely based on financial need, with a debatable % of corruption thrown in.
I know fifa have some type of African assistance payments (development) from World Cup revenue, so was hoping the two parties could get together and improve development payments to a level where a Afcon is only needed every 4 years. The issue with this utopian idea is that it requires an openly corrupt organization (fifa) to give up more money to another corrupt organization, while other corrupt football organizations (EUFA) complain that they want more money as well.
Edit: There is a reason why all the African delegates voted yes for WC every 2 years, while EUFA says no because they donāt need it or donāt want their revenue diluted.
Uganda (89), Kenya (102), and Tanzania (130) arenāt significant even at continental level. Awarding them the hosting rights (and the automatic qualification that comes with it) will only harm the prospects of some more competent nations. Also, all three are impoverished countries and the hundreds of millions to be spent for hosting should have been spent for things like health, education, etc.
Have been to these 3 countries many times and totally disagree. They are football mad and so much untapped potential because their federations are well behind the north and west African countries. It will be a brilliant boost for them to host. Parts are impoverished and parts are modern and progressive.
The poverty is an even greater reason to let them host. There will be a short term economic boost associated with big events and a surge in visitors, who inject money into the local economy. In the longer term, a significant benefit of hosting a tye competition is investment which inevitably leaves a legacy of improved sporting venues and the creation of local jobs
I think thereās a fair argument to be made from both sides on this. On one hand, the investment into infrastructure, stadiums, and other hosting concerns should in theory give their economies a boost and maybe put them in good stead to host other large events in the future. On the other hand, it IS a lot of money when considered as a percentage of GDP, their governments will likely borrow that money, and it has the risk of leading them into further poverty if the uptick in outside money flowing in doesnāt have enough of an impact to offset the costs.
I agree with @Iftikhar that if these countries are going to invest large sums (relatively speaking) of money into something, it should be education, healthcare, and infrastructure to allow future generations to thrive.
