By Daily Sports on January 10, 2017

It’s the time once again when the club vs country debate comes up as African players in Europe are required to appear in their countries’ camps for preparations for the African Nations Cup (AFCON) scheduled to begin in a few days in Gabon. European leagues are just entering the second and crucial rounds of their domestic leagues and are reluctant, to say the least, about their players leaving for what they generally consider a less glamorous and quality-free tournament.

This year the debate has reached a crescendo as a number of players have come out to refuse to play for their countries and opting to stay with their clubs. Worst hit is Cameroon as, at the last count, eight players had turned their backs on the Indomitable Lions.

Eric Maxime Choupo-Moting Joel Matip (Liverpool), Andre Onana of Ajax Amsterdam, Guy Roland Ndy Assembe (Nancy), Allan Nyom (West-Bromwich-Albion), Maxime Poundje (Girondins-Bordeaux), Andre-Frank Zambo Anguissa (Olympique-Marseille) and Ibrahim Amadou (Lille).

Never in the history of the African Nations Cup have we seen players reject their national team in such droves. The concern now is that the AFCON is going to be dominated by talk of the absences. The wider fear is that other African players could look to replicate this behavior in the future and blight African football’s biggest showpiece tournament even further.

I’m further tempted to think that the Cameroonian players who have walked away from their country now must have weighed their chances of returning to the Cameroonian set up and what they stand to miss in the future if they continuously stay out of the national team. The world cup qualifiers is still on, and it is every player’s dream to feature in the World Cup. Most international stars would be wearing their country’s jersey with pride and would be looking forward to put on a good performance to enhance their career chances. Ordinarily, the Cameroonian players turning their backs on their country now, would like to play in the World Cup as well.

But my thinking is that they could have taken a look at their country’s World Cup qualifying table now, with Nigeria’s Super Eagles in top form and sitting on top with a healthy six points to Cameroon’s 2, and would be thinking that World Cup qualification is a long shot away for their country, hence they feel they may not have anything to lose by staying away from the Nations Cup now.

That said, Cameroon’s FA and the other Football Associations in Africa have to find a solution to this problem. Sanctioning the players will be a good start in the short term.

Cameroon’s Coach Hugo Broos in a statement reacting to the players’ withdrawal said: “These players have put personal interest above those of the national team, and the Federation reserves the right to take action against the players in accordance with FIFA regulation.”

A long term solution may be to shift the Nations Cup to the end of the European season. Apart from fears about the African weather, with some countries in the rainy season at that time, I don’t see why the African Nations Cup can’t take place at that period. We may just have to manage the weather uncertainty as the only lasting solution to the problem of Europe-based players pulling out of the AFCON.

Source Daily Sports

Posted January 10, 2017

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