Key Highlights
- Football is akin to a religion among Africa’s largely young population, with 60% of its 1.5 billion people under the age of 25. But the timing of this Afcon, to be played over the Christmas and New Year period in Rabat, Casablanca, Marrakech, Agadir, Tangier and Fez, has never happened since the tournament began in 1957, igniting a storm of anger throughout the African football community. Africa Cup of Nations shunted into margins as greedy game finds no room at top table | Jonathan WilsonRead morePatrice Beaumelle, Angola’s 47-year-old French coach, spoke the minds of his colleagues when he excoriated the Confederation of African Football (Caf) and Fifa for shortening pre-Afcon team preparation time from two weeks to less than seven days.
- “Releasing a player on the 15th [of December] for an Afcon that kicks off on the 21st … it’s nonsense,” he said.
- “You can’t prepare a serious team in just two or three sessions.”Gernot Rohr, who is coaching Benin in Morocco and was in charge of Gabon and Nigeria at the 2012 and 2019 Afcons respectively, says: “There is a serious lack of respect that is being shown to the Afcon.
- In a meeting that the technical staff of all the qualified teams had with Caf, we asked them when our players, most of whom are in European clubs, will be released, for us to begin our preparations.
- Caf was not able to give us a clear answer.”The unspoken reason for that related to discussions between Fifa and European clubs, which resulted in Fifa stating on 3 December, taking a cue from the Qatar 2022 World Cup, that 15 December was the release date. Fifa’s notice said the Caf executive committee had agreed to stage the Afcon “from 21 December 2025 to 18 January 2026, to avoid any conflicts with the Uefa Champions League and the Uefa Europa League”. Côte D’Ivoire players celebrate as their country’s president, Alassane Ouattara, lifts the Africa Cup of Nations trophy after they beat Nigeria in the last final, in 2024.
