AFCON 2019: This Generation’s Tournament

By: Youssef Shebria 

@YShebria

After five months of hard work and dedication in early 2019, Egyptian youth managed to put together one of the most successful AFCON (African Cup of Nations) tournaments ever in the history of the competition.   

The Finance and Economics Club (FEC) highlighted the impact of the AFCON on Egypt’s youth and economy, when they hosted Mohamed Fadl, director of the tournament, Hassan Al-Mestikawi, football journalist and Emad Meteb, retired footballer, along with other guest speakers on September 30 at AUC’s Bassily Auditorium. 

Fadl described AFCON as “This Generation’s Tournament” and stressed that most of the organizers involved in preparing for the tournament were young men and women. About 3,000 contributed in various roles, including marketing, media coordination and protocol.

“Without the young volunteers, nothing would have been the same,” said Fadl.

But the tournament’s success was also felt beyond Egypt.

“AFCON sent a great message about Egypt’s stability and showed how Egypt could host 24 countries without having any major problems. It also contributed in increasing Egypt’s tourism, thus boosting the economy,” Ahmed Hassan, former captain of the Egyptian National team and one of the speakers told The Caravan. 

History was also made at AFCON 2019 as Egypt became the first nation to host the tournament with its updated competition of 24 teams instead of the usual 16 teams.   

Egypt was given the chance to host the tournament just five months before the start of the competition after Cameroon failed to live up to its hosting obligations and withdrew.

Hassan says that Egypt nevertheless managed to host one of the more memorable tournaments in the history of African football. 

With that in mind, Egypt came out as the actual winner from the competition, despite the loss of the national team to South Africa in the second round. Algeria later beat Senegal to take the cup.

“This is considered to be one of the few tournaments where Egypt managed to obtain financial gains from hosting the competition. On a political level, Egypt was able to send a message to the whole world that despite all the circumstances that Egypt is facing, the country is capable to hold a tournament of such size,” Karim Ramzy, sports presenter and guest speaker at the event told The Caravan.

Raghda Moharram, FEC’s president who organized the AFCON Success Event in Bassily Hall, said: “The fact that the youth presented Egypt to the tournament so well also inspired us to host the event.”