Back in 2007 during the CAF Executive Committee meeting held in Johannesburg, South Africa, an idea to a have a continental competition that caters for home-grown players was hatched.
The sole purpose was to give such players an opportunity to play for their nations given the fact that majority of national teams use foreign-based players especially for tournaments like Africa Cup of Nations and FIFA World Cup.
The tournament was named African Nations Championship (CHAN) and was approved in January 2008 with Ivory Coast named as the hosts of the inaugural edition a year later.
At the time, CHAN indeed made sense especially for players who may otherwise never have had the opportunity to compete internationally.
Agyemang Badu, Yves Bissouma, Elia Meschak, Ayoub El Kaabi, Soufiane Rahimi and Lamine Camara are some of the outstanding players that have played at CHAN.
From 8 teams that played at the inaugural edition, the next edition in 2011 was expanded to accomade 16 teams. This has since grown to 19 that will feature at the 2024 edition in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania.
However, the future of this tournament hangs in balance due to growing disinterest from key footballing nations and logistical challenges.
Football Giants like Egypt, Algeria and South Africa have gone on to shun the tournament, failing to find value.
On some occasions, other countries like Morocco have opted to use their youth teams. South Africa, previously used players from lower divisions, but this failed to produce significant results.
Such half-hearted participation has gone on to undermine the tournament’s credibility and competitive integrity.
A congested CAF calendar especially with competitions like CAF Champions League and CAF Confederation Cup has also hindered the progress of CHAN.
For instance, there are CAF inter-club games going on now and some clubs may not be able to release their players on time to their national teams or even fear about the injuries considering that the tournament comes in the middle of the season.
Additionally, CAF still struggles to make a financial sense about the tournament. Despite increasing the winning prize to $2M this year, there is still a lot of work to do to make sure the tournament is viable.
With 28 days to the start of the 2024 edition, the tournament still hangs in balance with some sources claiming there could be a further postponement.
The post The Countdown: CHAN, a tournament with noble purpose but failing in execution appeared first on Kawowo Sports.
