‘Government to announce budget for organising AFCON by next week': youth minister State considering launching e-ticketing system to give fans chance to return to stadiums
The government will be announcing next week, the budget required to host the African Cup of Nations (AFCON) which is planned to start on 7 June 2019. Ashraf Sobhy, the minister of youth, informed Daily News Egypt that the budget has not been determined until now, and that the government is likely to announce it within the next week. “The government is awaiting the active participation from the private sector in organising the cup which might take place over the next few days,” he added. Sobhy added that the government is considering launching an e-ticketing system to give fans the chance to return to stadiums. The ministry of youth aims to complete launching the e-ticketing system with the establishment of an information base for the fans, in partnership with the ministry of military production, and with both companies Dominique and Falcon. The first phase of the project includes preparing the infrastructure to organise the electronic entry of fans in four stadiums which are the Cairo Stadium, El Salam Stadium, the Air Defence Stadium, and Borg El Arab Stadium. The minister explained that efforts are currently being exerted in order to choose the individuals in the committees that are to supervise the tournament. Ashraf Sobhy also announced that there will be three committees responsible for organising the tournament. The first one is the supreme committee, headed by Prime Minister Moustafa Madbouly, the second is the follow-up committee, which will be headed by the minister of youth and sports, and will be responsible for managing the coordination between all committees, and the executive committee, headed by Hany Abou Rida, president of the Egyptian Football Association. He pointed out that there is a full coordination between the concerned bodies in a way which reflects Egypt's leading position in Africa. Furthermore, Sobhy noted that the Egyptian government has sought the chance to host the matches, starting from President Al-Sisi who was keen on approving the government guarantee letter in order to organise the tournament in a record time, to the football association which prepared the file of hosting the tournament in less than three days. After a long session on Tuesday in the Senegalese Dakar, the Confederation of African Football (CAF) assigned Egypt to organise the AFCON. Egypt got 16 votes against one to South Africa, after the organisation of the matches was withdrawn from Cameroon due to being unprepared to host such an event. The 2019 edition sees the participation of 24 teams in the AFCON after the decision of CAF to increase the number of teams. Egypt will be hosting the AFCON for the fifth time in its history after the editions of 1959, 1974, 1986, and 2006.
