The Confederation of African Football (Caf) announced Egypt as the new hosts for the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations tournament.
South Africa and Egypt were the only two nations to submit bids for the tournament, which is only five months away from kicking off after Cameroun were dumped as hosts late last year.
Egypt submitted their bid alongside South Africa to host the finals. According to Caf, Cameroun was not ready to host an expanded 24-team tournament. Caf was expected to make an official announcement on Wednesday, but the decision was brought forward to Tuesday.
Egypt received 16 votes to South Africa's one, Caf confirmed in a press conference. Both Egypt and South Africa have extensive football facilities to host the tournament.
Tuesday's CAF executive committee revealed Egypt as the nation to replace Cameroun as 2019 Afcon hosts. North African media outlets had predicted an Egyptian win long before the announcement this morning.
Following CAF's decision to strip the hosting rights from Cameroun because of delays in infrastructure and security concerns, Egypt and South Africa bid to step in as late hosts.
While South African football fans were divided as to whether or not the country should bid for the tournament, the South African Football Association (Safa) never got the backing from the government which reportedly made it difficult for Caf to accept their bid.
The South African government expected Caf to provide details of what was expected from them before agreeing to help Safa, but the process never followed through. Egypt, who won the Afcon trophy a record seven times, will host the tournament for the third time in their history.
"The moment Egypt won the tournament hosting rights it became a response to the skeptics. The prestige and value of Egypt and the great figures in it, such as engineer Hani Abu Rida was very significant to make the difference. This led to the great professionalism for Egypt to win the organization of the Afcon," he said.
"I assure everyone of the next step for Egypt, the Minister of Youth and Sports, the fans and the Football Federation is capable of organizing a big tournament and we promise everyone that this will be a tournament of the highest level in the organization."
While South Africa may have lost the bid, Banyana Banyana star Thembi Kgatlana and Coach Desiree Ellis are up for awards this evening at the annual CAF awards.
