Early this year, Ghana hosted the African Games, by inviting the rest of Africa in the country. Eventually, Ghana was praised by the world for putting up one of the beautiful and successful events lately.
This has gone far to have a positive effect, as the country is expected in the next couple of days to place in a bid to host the 2026 African Games Championships.
If Ghana fulfills the time constraint, it will be the second country aside Botswana, to bid for the event.
At the executive council meeting of the Confederation of African Athletics (CAA) on Thursday June 20, 2024, the two nations were urged to place in the bid, considering that they have magnificent facilities to host Africa.
It will be the first time both countries will endeavor to host Africa’s renowned olympic style events competition.
“Ghana has had an excellent host record in the past few months with the 2023 African Games last March and the CAA Region Two Meet last month, it will be a good idea to put the facilities to use by considering to host the 2026 Championships,” an executive member of the council said.
Responding to this, the Head of Ghana Athletics, Fuseini Bawa said while it was empowering to be called upon to bid, the ultimate decision will be made with the endorsement of the Ministry of Youth and Sports (MoYS).
He said since it won’t just be the obligation of the Athletics Federation, but the full underwriting of government, the team will make that pressing conference before a final decision and June 24 cutoff time.
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Ghana now has the standard facilities and the technical capacity to host any international event, thanks to the facilities put up for the 2023 African Games. But according to Mr Bawa, the decision to bid to host will have to be done with the endorsement of government through the Sports Ministry.
The scope of hosting the continental track and field competition is not as enormous as the African Games.
Though it will be for all 54 countries, events are restricted to the tracks and field, thus, the facilities at the University of Ghana Stadium will be good enough for the competition usually scheduled over six days.
Ghana enjoys a relative upper hand over Botswana as the capacity building training given to specialized officials in anticipation of the 2023 African Games would in any case be compelling.
Also, the experience of hosting the Region Two CAA Meet, a mini competition for the West African sub region, will be handy.
However, in all these, the financial demands of hosting over 3,000 athletes and officials from the 54-member countries, will ultimately impact the choice to offer or not.
