Billing Sunday’s Africa Cup of Nations final as a clash of Salah and Mané misses the wider point in a shambolic tournamentMohamed Salah against Sadio Mané, two great Liverpool forwards going head-to-head in Sunday’s Africa Cup of Nations final. It’s the headline clash of Egypt against Senegal, the meeting of the most successful side in African history and a team that has never lifted the trophy. But to focus on them would be misleading: although both have had an influence late in games, neither Senegal nor Egypt could be said to be teams based around their attacking talent.There is an unavoidable sense that even to focus on the football is itself uncomfortable, given the tragic events of a fortnight ago...
Caf cannot sit above the carnage and casually brush off responsibility nor become Gianni Infantino’s Fifa playthingEven in his first press conference after Monday’s disaster at the Stade Olembé in which eight fans died, Patrice Motsepe, the president of the Confederation of African Football, was looking to shift the blame. He convened a commission to investigate the causes – it was expected to report on Friday, but is yet to do so – but the avoidance of corporate responsibility had begun already.There was the gate that was “inexplicably” shut. And that, almost certainly, was the direct cause of the buildup of people and the surge towards the open gate that knocked down a temporary barrier and led to people being...
Debutants Comoros and the Gambia reaching the last 16 should not be a surprise and make the case for further expansionThe middle continues to rise. In Europe at least, the question about African football is why it has not kicked on the past two decades from the time when, in the space of 12 years between 1990 and 2002, Cameroon and Senegal reached World Cup quarter-finals and Cameroon and Nigeria won Olympic golds. One quarter-final since does not look much like progress.And yet for all that issues of infrastructure and administration continue to blight the highest level of the African game, where there has been clear progress has been lower down the pyramid. There is a healthy and growing middle...
A zealous and over-literal refereeing culture is undermining the authority of officials whether they make mistakes or notJanny Sikazwe made a mistake and ended up blowing for full time after 85 minutes of Wednesday’s Africa Cup of Nations meeting between Mali and Tunisia. Forgetting to stop the watch during a water break (if that is what happened) is an understandable error – particularly given he was subsequently taken to hospital suffering from heatstroke – and one that could easily have been rectified.As it was, though, Sikazwe, an experienced referee who took charge of the 2017 Cup of Nations final as well as Belgium v Panama and Japan v Poland at the 2018 World Cup, looked rattled. He sent off Mali’s...
The venerable tournament has long fought for recognition and sniping over its scheduling ignores its joys as a spectacleIdeally, the discussion leading up to the 33rd Africa Cup of Nations, which begins on Sunday as the hosts Cameroon face Burkina Faso in Yaoundé, would have centred on potential winners, surprise packages and stand-out players. Can Algeria defend their crown? Can Mohamed Salah inspire Egypt? Can a north African side win for only the third time in sub-Saharan Africa? Will Senegal, with their depth of talent, triumph for the first time? Why do Nigeria have an interim coach?But instead the discussion, in England at least, has centred on which Premier League clubs will be worst affected by the tournament. A lot...