Africa’s soccer governing body, CAF, constantly shops for hosts of its women tournament while turning a blind eye to the inadequacies of any country willing to host the Africa Women Championship (AWC).

That was exactly what happened in the sixth AWC held from Nov. 15 to Nov. 29 in Equatorial Guinea.

From the palpable hostility of the hosts to the ill-treatment of visiting teams and poor organisation of the two-week tournament, the Equatorial Guineans did not hide their desperation to win the competition by fair or by foul means.

And CAF was unwilling to listen to the myriad complaints by the visiting delegations.

Although the championship has ended with the hosts emerging winner, its organisation pose a big challenge for the CAF as Equatorial Guinea will host or co-host the continent’s soccer showpiece competition, the Africa Cup of Nations in four years.

Will CAF turn a blind eye to the poor officiating which was very noticeable during the just-concluded tournament Will the continent’s soccer body tolerate the lack of media centres or the non-accreditation of journalists, the noisy hotels that were assigned to teams in both Malabo and Bata in 2012 as it did last month? Is the standard for hosting the Nations Cup different from the other competitions organised by CAF These are some of the posers for CAF, who had set a standard for its competitions, have to provide answers to before 2012.

The noticeable hostility of the Equatorial Guineans to Supporters’ Clubs and journalists especially from Nigeria, coupled with the language barrier, took the shine off the continental soccer competition.

Journalists from Nigeria were not accredited until mid-way into the championship after much endurance and subtle blackmail.

The Nigeria Football Supporters’ Club were initially denied access to the Malabo Stadium because the Falcons were playing against the host country.

Absence of a media centre and work stations for journalists to send their reports as well as the issue of questionable officiating of matches.

Nigeria’s coach Joseph Ladipo, Enow Ngachu of Cameroon and South Africa’s Augustine Makalakalane gave low marks to officiating at the competition.

Enow frowned at the rationing of four 1.5 bottles of water among the 18 Cameroonians and the noisy atmosphere at the Hotel Tropicana, Malabo, which distracted concentration among the players.

The penalty retake ordered by Rafiatou Sitou of the Republic of Benin in the third place match between Nigeria and the Cameroon after Gabrielle Aboud had initially booted wide from the spot, was also controversial.

So also was the handling of the controversial hermaphrodites in the Equatorial Guineans team, Salimata Simpore (8) and Bilguisa Simpore (5) which was swept under the carpet by CAF.

However, the championship exposed Nigeria’s ill-preparation and complacency and the NFF’s refusal to acknowledge that other countries on the continent had caught up with the Falcons.

The competition also revealed that the NFF lacked genuine stakeholders, as Nigeria’s leader of delegation, Amanze Uchegbulam abandoned the team after the 0-1 semi-final loss to Equatorial Guinea’s Nzalang (Thunder).