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Destination for Newcastle trio to be decided in 24 hours

9 years ago
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Talk about taking it to the wire, the question of where the African Cup of Nations finals will be held still remains in the balance.

With only two months to go, Morocco have once again called the bluff of the authorities by ignoring the Saturday deadline of whether or not they will host the finals as scheduled between 17th January and 8th February 2015.

The Confederation of African Football (CAF) had told Morocco that they had to make up their mind as to whether they would host the tournament as arranged, having dismissed the worries of the Ebola virus spreading via the hosting of the African Cup of Nations.

Instead of a yes or no answer, with ‘no’ bringing possible sanctions, the Moroccan football chiefs have released the following;

“Morocco maintains its request to postpone.

“The decision is dictated by health reasons because of the serious threat of Ebola and the risk of it spreading.”

Morocco had previously stated they would be prepared to host in June 2015 or January 2016 instead.

The authorities have dismissed this and insist the dates will be kept to, though a number of countries have already turned down the chance to be emergency hosts if Morocco fail to keep to the agreement. CAF will make their final decision on Tuesday (tomorrow).

There is little doubt that Newcastle would have been more than happy with a postponement to the summer.

Both Cheick Tiote and Papiss Cisse are sure to figure if Senegal and Ivory Coast qualify, both countries find qualification is in the balance a double-header for each in this international break.

Whereas, Algeria have already qualified with four wins out of four, with Mehdi Abeid getting his first senior call up and the chance to stake a claim to be in Morocco….or wherever in January/February.

The tournament may only last 23 days but history tells us that any participating players could be missing for anything up to five or six weeks, due to training camps beforehand and recuperation afterwards.

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