2027 AFCON is going East ! 🇺🇬🇰🇪🇹🇿

🇹🇿🇺🇬🇰🇪By winning the 2027 Afcon Bid, Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya are looking to put East Africa on the football map.⚽️ Can you guess which country played a key role in financing the bid's stadiums ? 👀 

First, here’s a bit about East Africa 🌍 

The region counts 13 countries, belonging to four distinct regional economic communities.
Estimates place the current population in the region at around 500 million.
The East Africa Community, which all three future hosting nations belong to represent a GDP of 160 billion (in comparison, according to the IMF Morocco’s GDP is of 138 billion)
East Africa is Africa’s second fastest growing economic region

🏆 The region winning this bid is quite historic. The tournament has not been hosted in the region since Ethiopia in 1976.

Out of all thirteen countries of East Africa, only 2 (Uganda and Sudan) have made it to the semi-finals and beyond and the region has virtually never hosted a major sports event.

This winning bid is a strong signal from CAF Confederation of African Football President Patrice Motsepe to ensure that there is no longer a regional monopoly on African football.

🏗 The big challenge that the three winning nations of the Pamoja bid will be infrastructures.

🇨🇳 One interesting point to highlight is how China has been central to the existing infrastructures in that bid.

💰 The Moi International Sports Center in Kenya (which is likely to host the final) was built in 1987 in partnership with the PRC. In 2010, a $12 million loan was granted by the Government of China to refurbish the stadium (the contractor was also a Chinese engineering firm). In Uganda, the Nelson Mandela Stadium.

In Uganda, a $36 million grant led to the construction of the 45 000 seater Mandela National Stadium (an additional 2.8 million grant was later approved for refurbishing)

Finally, in 2004 Tanzania signed a $56 million contract with the Chinese government (which provided a $20 million loan) for the 60 000 seater Benjamin Mkapa Stadium (the only stadium in the bid that is fit to host an International CAF game).

🚧 All three countries have presented with plans to revamp their stadiums and build training pitches to welcome the 24-team competition. Kenya has handed over the building of a football-rugby sports complex and the revamping of three existing stadiums to the Defence Ministry. Tanzania’s President Samia Suluhu has ordered for the building of two new stadiums in the cities of Arusha and Dodoma (north and central Tanzania). Uganda has made similar commitments.

🦒🏝 Just like Morocco, Tanzania (home of the beautiful Zanzibar) and Kenya are two major tourism hubs : Tourism brought $2.5 billion to Tanzania’s economy (the sector is expected to grow and represent almost 20% of GDP by 2026). The sector brought $2.3 billion to Kenya’s economy in 2022 and is projected to grow up to $3.6 billion by 2027.