The 2023 Africa Cup of Nations will be staged in Ivory Coast in 2024, according to a statement made on Sunday by Confederation of African Football (CAF) president Patrice Motsepe.
The competition was scheduled to take place in June–July 2023, Ivory Coast’s rainy season.
In Rabat, the Moroccan capital, the South African remarked, “We cannot take the chance.”
The finals will be delayed rather than moved up since the World Cup in Qatar will take place in November and December of this year.
After this year’s competition in Cameroon, it means that the Nations Cup will be contested in January and February for the second consecutive year.
In an effort to avoid further conflicts with European clubs obliged to release players in the middle of the season, Caf stated in 2017 that it would relocate the finals from their customary January-February timeframe to June-July.
Because of the European clubs, January is not the ideal time, but it is the only option we have, said Motsepe.