folem wrote:
Enugu II wrote:
Bigpokey24 wrote:
I accept every 4 years, I accept June and I accept 24 teams..now the tournament will be bigger and better..4 years os wonderful. .having the afcon every 2 years , water downs the competition. ..however ghana go suffer the baren jokes.
Bigpokey,
I doubt that the idea of watering down is compelling. After all the national leagues and FA Cups occur annually. Are those watered down?
For me the test of Ahmad's changes are not going to be in the media but in the financial books of CAF down the road and also in the cooperation of the climate during the competition. Those will be the tests.
There was rain at matches of CAN held in January. The majority of African leagues play throughout June including Nigeria. The sponsorship with TOTAL already put more money in the coffers. I'm not sure about expansion to 24 teams except it is based primarily on TV revenue.
Folem,
The issue is about probability of rain. There is more likelihood of rain in the summer in subsaharan Africa than there is in January. No one claims 0 chance of January rain and thus pointing to rain in the recent CAN does not deny the weather difference between January/February and the summer months in much of the Sub sahara. Ofcourse, African leagues play through June but they deal with the fact that more games are likely to be postponed in the summer. Check games that are put off until Monday in the NPFL during those months, if you follow the league closely as many of us do. Nevertheless, you should be familiar with the weather if you have lived in Nigeria. Perhaps, you are not? In any case, hope you are reading about the rains and floods in Lagos in the past few days. How many times do those occur in January? That is the issue.
Yes, the sponsorship from Total has brought in funds but will CAF depend on that or hope to outstrip that? The idea is that with frequent competition, CAF has more opportunities to attract other sponsors. The CAN is the flagship event and is CAF's cash cow. If Ahmad works hard, he can surely compensate on this issue by finding higher level sponsorship under a 4-year cycle but that is yet to be done and thus the jury is still out on that.
Actually, I like the increase to 24 teams as it will generate more interest across the continent and may be used to get more funds from sponsors since, theoretically, it increases the audience reach of the tournament but that has to be seen as actually occurring.