Fear of the spread of Ebola has now thrown Africa’s most important soccer tournament into disarray.
Morocco was removed Tuesday as host of the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations and expelled from participating in the biennial championship after it sought to delay the 16-team event, concerned about a spread of the virus.
No replacement host has yet been named for the tournament, which is scheduled from Jan. 17 to Feb. 8.
The expulsion of Morocco was announced by the Confederation of African Football, or C.A.F., the regional soccer governing body, which accused Moroccan officials of being alarmist in wanting to delay the Cup of Nations by six months or a year.
Ebola has not been detected in Morocco, the organization noted recently. Relatively few visiting fans were expected for the Cup of Nations; the scheduled dates fit within a window on the world soccer calendar; and a postponement could be financially crippling to the regional governing body, the confederation has said.
Also, none of the three West African nations hit hardest by the epidemic — Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone — have so far qualified for the 2015 Cup of Nations. Liberia exited in the preliminary qualifying rounds. Sierra Leone is in last place in its group with two qualifying matches remaining this month.
Guinea is tied for third in its four-team group and has a chance to qualify for the tournament. It has been allowed to host some qualifying matches in Casablanca, Morocco, with another match scheduled there next Wednesday.
Still, Moroccan officials, even under the threat of being barred from the Cup of Nations, held firm to their refusal to host the tournament finals as scheduled because of the possibility of a spread of Ebola. Morocco had wanted the Cup delayed until June 2015 or early 2016.
“This decision is motivated mainly by the medical risks that would put this virus on the health of our fellow Africans,” Mohamed Ouzzine, Morocco’s sports minister, said in a statement last weekend.
It remains unclear whether the tournament will proceed as scheduled or be delayed. C.A.F. said it was reviewing “some applications” from countries seeking to host the Cup of Nations on the scheduled dates, but it did not name them.
According to news accounts, the African soccer powers South Africa, Egypt and Ghana, along with Sudan, have said they were not interested. Nigeria, Angola and Gabon have been mentioned as possible replacements, according to The Associated Press.
A decision is expected within several days. No fill-in host would have much time to prepare if the Cup of Nations remains on its current schedule.
But Constant Omari, the president of the soccer federation of the Democratic Republic of Congo and a member of the C.A.F.’s executive committee, told French radio Monday that plans were for the tournament to proceed.
“The financial damage and the consequences for C.A.F. and its marketing partners would be too severe to call it off,” Omari told French radio.
The barring of Morocco was the latest disruption to soccer on the continent in the wake of the Ebola outbreak. Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone have been prevented from playing any matches at home by African officials until further notice.
In July, Seychelles forfeited a match and was dismissed from Cup of Nations qualifying after it refused to allow Sierra Leone’s team into the country, citing concerns about Ebola.
Sierra Leone’s team faced chants of “Ebola, Ebola” when it played recently in the Democratic Republic of Congo and in Cameroon. On a trip last month for two matches in Cameroon, the Sierra Leone players were placed in a hotel that had no other guests and were subjected to twice-daily checks for Ebola, even though none of the players are based in Sierra Leone or had traveled there since July.
“It’s a shame,” Abdul Bangura, a member of the Sierra Leone national team who plays professionally in the United States, said in a recent interview about the treatment of the players. “It’s really a shame.”