The flagship stadium in Bamako is three months behind schedule
Some Malians appear to have no doubts at all that the Nations Cup 2002 is really going to be held in their country and that it is going to be a wild success.
Topping this list of enthusiasts are the organising committee, COCAN, and the Malian president himself.
President Alpha Oumar Konare has called on Malians to make CAN 2002 'the biggest party' Mali has ever known.
His confidence and enthusiasm are not shared by all - since Mali was awarded the Cup in 1998, the country's economy has bottomed out, with falling prices for cotton and gold, the two key exports.
In recent months there has been a rash of strikes by workers in just about every sector and each time Mali's Prime Minister Mande Sidibe tells the unions that the government does not have the money to meet their demands.
'If the government has no money," quipped one union leader, "then why is it hosting this tournament that is costing hundreds of billions of CFA francs we don't have?"
Tournament threat
The March 26th Stadium in Bamako is three months behind schedule because of repeated strikes by labourers.
Students and teachers who are demanding action to end the education crisis that has gripped the country for ten years are threatening to block the competition.
Demonstrators have marched on the Prime Minister's office, chanting the slogan, 'Without education, no CAN!'
Opposition leader, Mountaga Tall, has called the Cup of Nations 'planned humiliation for Mali'.
Furious traders in downtown Bamako who have been pushed out of the city centre as part of a clean-up effort say: "We're tired of the CAN - it isn't for us, it's for the president's ego."
Others go further, arguing that the Nations Cup is a serious 'danger' to peace and stability in the country.
Caf decision
In January, CAF president Issa Hayatou hinted that while Bamako was on course, it was unlikely that all the other four venue cities would be passed fit to host matches at the final inspection tour in July.
Since then, people in Segou, Sikasso, Mopti and Kayes, who have been paying extra taxes for two years to pay for the tournament, have been organising clean-up operations to try to get things in shape.
Some fear a public revolt in any city which is dropped from the final list of venues.
The governor of Kayes has warned the organisers that people will not take lightly any decision that excludes them. "It's the CAN or death!" he said.
Organisers dismiss the sceptics and deny the possibility that any site will be dropped, insisting the Nations Cup will be a resounding success.
In recent months, President Konare himself has repeatedly gone public to try to revive flagging public enthusiasm for the Mali 2002 project and to encourage football fans to reject violence.
He has also taken time to urge fans to steer clear of hooliganism, admitting that he had not watched a football match in Mali since 1994 because of the threat of crowd trouble.
One Malian sports reporter says the president's speeches may be in vain.
"The Malian public is uncontrollable," he says. 'If they win, they break things - if they lose, they break things - and if Mali lose their opening match, no one in this country, not even the army, will be able to control the public."
'No tear gas'
Head of security for CAN, Alioune Diamoutene, admits that for the past ten years, major football matches in Mali have been marred by crowd violence and often end in stampedes under clouds of tear gas.
Following recent stadium disasters in Ghana and South Africa, Diamoutene says the Malian Minister of Security has ordered policemen and gendarmes who will be handling safety in stadiums during the CAN to 'avoid using tear gas'.
Alpha Oumar Konare has every reason to hope the CAN succeeds - from the beginning he has thrown all his weight behind the preparations and added to the country's weighty debt to pay for them.
CAN 2002 comes just months before he must step down as president, and if it turns into the huge happy party he promises, then there is a very good chance that he will, as one analyst put it, 'go down in history as a hero'.