Afcon Tug Of War

Moving the Africa Cup of Nations to the start of 2024 has presented players and coaches with a headache

- Mark Gleeson

It was player pressure, more than the bleating of club managers, that finally saw African football make a firm decision to move their Cup of Nations finals from the opening months of every second year to a slot in the off-season.

Increasingly torn between club and country, footballers were threatening to forsake the tournament, even under the threat of ending their international careers, if it was not moved to a date that would not force them to make the difficult choice between club and country.

The club versus country tug of war was never an issue at the Cup of Nations until 1988 when restrictions on professional players competing were lifted. There was a trickle of players from clubs in Europe who competed at the tournaments thereafter, but once those numbers began to grow, the French league persuaded the Confederation of African Football (CAF) to move the Cup of Nations, from March to January, during their brief winter break. Then when European clubs tired of losing key African and/or South American players to international duty at haphazard times, the co-ordinated international calendar was introduced by FIFA under pressure from a powerful lobby. But a stubborn CAF president Issa Hayatou refused to move the Cup of Nations to mid-year, despite wider European pressure, for fear of being seen to cave in to the demands of the “colonists of the north”. He steadfastly stuck to the January, offering up no end of weak supporting arguments. Once Ahmad from Madagascar took over as president in 2017, he called for a summit on the African game and it was there it was decided to move the tournament to mid-year.