Football: The Africa Cup is intended to advance Côte d’Ivoire

It is hot in Abidjan even in January. In the economic metropolis of Côte d’Ivoire, the common name for the Ivory Coast today, the sun shines all day long and the thermometer often shows 35 degrees Celsius. Climate change has nothing to do with it, the West African Republic lies between the Tropic of Cancer and the Equator. There are no classic seasons here, only the dry season, which lasts from December to April, and the rainy season from May to November. Perhaps the weather was one of the reasons why the African Football Confederation (Caf) decided last year to postpone the Africa Cup of Nations until January 2024 rather than having to stage it six months beforehand under constant fear of downpours. On the other hand, it wasn’t the first postponement.

As early as 2014, the Caf announced that Cameroon would host the continent’s most important sports competition in 2019, and Côte d’Ivoire in 2021. However, delays in construction work at the venues and the corona pandemic changed the situation in Cameroon, and both tournaments were postponed by two Years. “If we had had to organize it in 2021, we would still have been ready,” assures a spokesman for the Sports Ministry “nd”. Might be. But perhaps President Alassane Ouattara would not have fully promised the “best Africa Cup ever organized.”

At least the wait is now over. After nine years and a total investment of almost 1.4 billion euros, the opening game between hosts Côte d’Ivoire and Guinea-Bissau will take place this Saturday (9 p.m.). A fairly easy opponent for national coach Jean-Louis Gasset’s team, even if the local “elephants” are not considered the tournament’s top favorites. Algeria, Morocco, Egypt, Nigeria and Senegal are more likely to be listed. After two triumphs in 1992 and 2015, a third star on the hosts’ orange national jersey seems rather unrealistic.

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“Our goal is to get as far as possible,” says the chairman of the Ivorian Football Association Yacine Idriss Diallo. »We have been building a team for this for a year. Many players have little international experience, but they act as a team and give 100 percent to keep the Ivorian flag flying.”

Diallo has to answer the nd author’s questions in a loud voice to drown out the infernal noise of the tropical rain that is falling behind him in Ebimpé, a village north of Abidjan. There is a microclimate here that differs significantly from the dream weather in the city center 20 kilometers away. The Stade Olympique Alassane Ouattara was built in Ebimpé three years ago, one of the six arenas in which a total of 52 tournament games will be played. A Chinese company took over the costs and construction work, “in the name of Ivorian-Chinese cooperation,” says Diallo.

Shortly after opening, the arena experienced one fiasco after another. In September, the friendly match against Mali was abandoned at half-time. Heavy rain had completely flooded the lawn. A few months before the Africa Cup, where 1.5 million visitors are expected, this was seen as an embarrassment for the organizing committee. Especially because the playing field alone, with its 60,000 seats, cost almost two million euros.

Sports Minister Claude Paulin Danho was then fired and supervision of the tournament was transferred directly to the new head of government Robert Beugré Mambé. “In a way, I’m glad that it’s raining so heavily today,” says Idriss Diallo. »So you can see live proof that the lawn is 100 percent OK.«

On the sidelines, the French construction manager Didier Pascal monitors half a dozen employees who are crouching carefully checking that not a single blade of weed is growing. “Since we were commissioned to carry out the renovation in September, we have been coming by every day to check the condition of the lawn,” says Pascal. According to him, the green was previously not sloping and permeable enough. »That’s why puddles formed. We installed drainage slits, cleaned them, and re-sown.” Hard work: for a week, 20 hours a day. “But not a single puddle is forming today,” says Pascal proudly.

The other five stages proved to be less problematic. Two of them were renovated, one in Abidjan (30,000 places) and the other in Bouaké (40,000), the country’s second largest city. The three remaining (20,000 each), in the capital Yamoussoukro, Korhogo and in San Pedro on the Atlantic coast, were newly built. There were also 24 new training places, one for each participating nation. Association President Diallo doesn’t think this is all megalomaniacal: “We didn’t have modern stadiums for 15 years. The national team often had to play its competitive games abroad. That will change now. Côte d’Ivoire will now become a hub for neighboring countries whose stadiums do not meet international standards. We are, so to speak, sports diplomats.«

At home, however, all of Ivorian football should benefit from the tournament. “Fifteen of the 16 first division clubs are currently playing in Abidjan,” says Diallo, pointing out that the clubs’ roots lie all over the country. That’s why hardly any spectators come to the stadiums. “This can not go on like this. The clubs are playing in their hometowns again, which will have a positive effect on enthusiasm for the league, but also on the infrastructure.

However, many people in the country fear that these monumental projects will become so-called Eléphants blancs (white elephants) – investment ruins that will stand unused in the landscape shortly after the end of the tournament. François Amichia, former sports minister and now president of the organizing committee, is aware of such fears, but in an interview with “nd” at the OC’s headquarters in the popular Treichville neighborhood, he emphasizes that the tournament has set much more in motion.

The building is located in an alley that is difficult to reach because of the traffic jams that are common here. From here to Ebimpé, just 20 kilometers away, it can take more than two hours by car. After the stadiums, road construction work had the highest priority. The entire length of the coastal motorway was renovated. It now takes five hours to travel the 350 kilometers to San Pedro. There used to be twelve. Inland to the north, a brand new toll highway connects the commercial centers of Abidjan and Bouaké.

New bridges and ring highways are intended to make Abidjan’s road traffic more fluid. “We also built new hospitals,” reports Amichia. In this way, the entire population benefits from the Africa Cup development accelerator. Absolutely necessary because, according to forecasts, the current population of 5.5 million will almost double by the end of the decade.

Then perhaps West Africa’s first subway, whose construction has been planned since 2015, will finally open. It is officially scheduled to be completed in 2027. But even in Côte d’Ivoire you have to be patient. “We are currently building projects that were supposed to be finished 15 years ago,” says a local journalist. »The country has experienced a deep political crisis that has only been over for about ten years. That’s why it all still needs time.” But if football speeds things up a bit, everyone is a winner – no matter who becomes African champion on February 11th.

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