There is something about East Africa hosting the delayed 2024 African Nations Championship (Chan) that truly resonates with the phrase “football’s coming home”– a chant that is associated with England proclaiming its role as the inventor of the sport and entitlement to win trophies.
It is a phrase that East Africa can also own as the continental tournament kicks off today.
The first international football match between two African countries was played in Nairobi on May 1, 1926. Kenya and Uganda drew 1-1 before Kenya won the replay 2-1 two days later to emerge victorious in the first edition of the Gossage Cup.
The Cup, now known as Cecafa, is Africa’s oldest international football competition. While it now features teams from other parts of the continent, the tournament initially only had East African teams – Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Zanzibar – until 1972.
The difference between Afcon and Chan.
Photo credit: Nation Media Group
Some 99 years later, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda are reviving that heritage on a bigger scale by co-hosting the 2024 Chan, the first major CAF tournament to be hosted in East Africa.
From today till August 30, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda will welcome 16 teams from the rest of the continent for a football extravaganza that will see action taking place in Dar es Salaam, Kampala, Nairobi and Zanzibar.
The three countries are co-hosting the tournament as a rehearsal for jointly staging the 2027 Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon). Their preparations have seen the upgrading of at least five stadiums in the region.
Moi International Sports Centre, Kasarani and Nyayo National Stadium in Nairobi have undergone renovations to make them ready for Chan. It is the same for Benjamin Mkapa Stadium (Dar es Salaam), Nelson Mandela Stadium (Kampala) and Amaan Stadium in Zanzibar.
Moi International Sports Centre, Kasarani.
Photo credit: Sila Kiplagat| Nation Media Group
The three countries are also building new stadiums in preparation for the 2027 Afcon, while also upgrading transport infrastructure.
Hosting the tournament is also expected to boost tourism in the region, with hotels and businesses cashing in from the influx of visitors.
Translators have been polishing their CVs, expecting to help CAF sustain the use of its official languages – Arabic, English, French and Portuguese – during the tournament.
Those in transport and logistics are itching to prove the reliability of East African roads and vehicles. Whichever way you look at it, there is something for everyone.
Even with the excitement and enthusiasm for welcoming the continent for 2024 Chan, East Africa hosting the tournament has a dreamlike feeling to it, particularly for Kenyans.
Preparations for hosting the tournament were haunted by doubts and suspicions of the region’s ability to pull it off. This scepticism rode on Kenya’s failure to organise and stage the 1996 Afcon and 2018 Chan.
The Democratic Republic of Congo squad arrives in Kenya on July 31, 2025 for the 2024 African Nations Championship (Chan).
Photo credit: Sila Kiplagat| Nation Media Group
That it is truly happening gives the tournament a surrealism of a Salvador Dali painting – impossible and unusual are happening and we are living them.
On Friday morning at the Stadion Hotel during an event hosted by the Ministry of Sports and Football Kenya Federation (FKF) to host Kenyan football legends, Sports Cabinet Secretary Salim Mvurya proclaimed victory over cynics and doubters, with the emancipating sigh of wildebeests that have crossed crocodile-infested River Mara.
“The tournament starts tomorrow in Tanzania and we play the DR Congo on Sunday. This time it is possible and we are hosting,” the minister said.
While hosting the delayed 2024 Chan is as big as it gets for Kenya, the country is not a stranger to being in continental and global limelight. It has won rights for hosting top competitions.
In 1987, the country hosted the All Africa Games – now renamed African Championships. Events in the competition took place at Moi International Sports Centre.
Preparations at Moi International Sports Centre, Kasarani Stadium on August 1, 2025.
Photo credit: Sila Kiplagat| Nation Media Group
The stadium, a cauldron designed to resemble a blossoming lotus flower, rocked with tens of thousands of people who watched Harambee Stars’ run in the football competition end with a 1-0 defeat to Egypt in the final.
“After the match, we heard that the Chinese who constructed the stadium were circling around the venue nervously. They feared that if Kenya scored a goal, the newly-opened arena would collapse under the weight of 100,000 people jumping at the same time. Perhaps, it was fortunate that we did not score,” Mr James Nandwa, who played for Kenya that day, recalled.
Yet, Kasarani stood firm. Roars from the stadium echoed across the world as Kenya hosted the 2017 World Athletics Under-18 Championships and the 2021 World Athletics Under-20 Championships.
The turnout was unprecedented for junior athletics events. The world left the country with an unforgettable memory of the Kenyan passion and psyche.
The 2017 World Athletics Under-18 Championships was hyped as “first time in Kenya and last time in the world” to refer to the discontinuation of the event and its merging with the Under-20 Championships.
Still, it was not the first time the world had been to the country for sporting events. Neither was it the last.
In 2007, hilarious images of 470 athletes from 63 countries being dipped in drums filled with cold water after finishing their races tickled the globe as Mombasa hosted that year’s IAAF World Cross Country Championships.
Three years later, flags of 46 African countries flew at Nyayo National Stadium as Kenya hosted the 2010 African Athletics Championships with 588 athletes competing in 44 events.
On September 28, 1993, basketballer Bush Wamukota was born on the day Kenya finished fourth in the Fiba African Championships – hosted in Nairobi. The Morans lost 76-90 in the third-place play-off.
When it comes to hosting major sporting events and producing sportspeople, Kenya can do it on the same day.
Other continental and global sports events that Kenya has hosted are: the 1985 African Cross Country Athletics Championships, the 2012 African Swimming Championships, the 2013 Men’s and Women’s Hockey African Cup of Nations, the 2021 African Weightlifting Championships and numerous senior and youth handball, rugby and volleyball tourneys.
Hosting Chan 2024 takes the Kenyan sporting legacy to new horizons. The competition comes to East Africa, having grown to become one of African football’s most prestigious contests.
The winners of 2024 Chan will receive $3.5 million (Sh455 million), a figure that is more than what the last two winners of the competition got combined.
Morocco was given $1.25 million for winning 2020 Chan, and Senegal’s success in 2022 made it $2 million richer.
The current prize for winning Chan is only surpassed by that of the CAF Champions League, and the African Cup of Nations – $4 million (Sh520 million) and $7 million (Sh910 million) respectively.
When the competition was first played in Cote d’Ivoire in 2009, DR Congo was awarded USD750 000, against a total prize money pool of USD3.25 million.
Chan also alerts African football of its hidden gems while advertising Africa’s domestic leagues. The competition has produced stars who have gone on to dazzle the continent and the world at bigger stages.
They include Harrison Afful (Ghana), Lamine Camara (Senegal), Nayef Aguerd (Morocco), and Patson Daka (Zambia). Others like Djigui Diarra (Mali), Farouk Miya (Uganda), and the Rwandese duo of Jacques Tuyisenge and Jean-Baptiste Mugiranenza went on to become stars in East African football.
Like those before them, Chan gives home-based African players an opportunity to etch their names in their countries’ and the continent’s football history.
When they retire they will become celebrated like Kenya’s legend Dennis Oliech who on Friday was unveiled as Kenya’s ambassador for Chan 2024 by Sports CS Mvurya during the event held at Stadion Hotel in Kasarani.
Recalling Harambee Stars memorable Harambee Stars in the 1970s and 1980s, Mvurya sees hosting Chan 2024 as instrumental in restoring Kenyan football’s lost glory. “Football in Kenya was everything. We want football in Kenya to be everything again,” he said.
Oliech, whom Mvurya hopes will rally Kenya and Harambee Stars to victory through his role, summoned the valiant aura that defined his national career to motivate the current Harambee Stars squad.
“Play without fear. Take risks. Do not leave the pitch with regrets of not having tried enough,” he declared.
The former Harambee Stars captain loved seeing fans in the stadium and he never failed to deliver on his promise to score a goal. Even after retiring, that enthusiasm for passionate crowds has not left him.
“I urge Kenyans to attend all matches played in Kenya, not just Harambee Stars. Chan is a festival and August is the month of football.”
After 99 years of roaming the continent, African football is finally back to the East African shores that birthed it with the Chan trophy. Hopefully, the trophy will stay too.
