By DPA
Accra : While football fans in Ghana are rejoicing at the opportunity of watching world class players Samuel Eto’o of Barcelona and Michael Essien of Chelsea in action at the Nations Cup, slated to start Jan 20, but many managers throughout Europe are far from happy with the prospect.
At a time when most of the European leagues have resumed after their Christmas break, African countries are calling up their Europe-based players for the showpiece of African football.
As more and more African players have joined the exodus to European clubs, more and more clubs have, as a result, been affected by the African Cup of Nations, which remains the only top international football competition that is played at a time when domestic football is in full swing.
Hosts Ghana, for instance, have just two locally based players in their squad, while Nigeria have none.
The situation has become even more complicated since world body FIFA introduced a rule that allowed players to change their nationalities if they qualified and had not played for the senior national team in a competitive game.
In 2004, for instance, Tottenham Hotspur caretaker coach David Pleat complained that he bought Frederic Kanoute as a French under-21, who then became a Mali international at the African Cup of Nations.
“We did not sign him as a Mali player, fully aware that he was going to the African Nations Cup. It’s like buying an intimidating player who misses 12 games a year because he keeps getting sent off. You would think twice about signing him,” Pleat said at the time.
Not long ago, some clubs in Europe would fly their star players to games at the continental competition in private planes, whisking them back to Africa as soon as the game had finished.
Those days, however, are long gone and most African countries are now insisting that their players are released according to the rules and regulations of the world’s governing body FIFA, which states that players have to be released 14 days before the start of the tournament.
This could mean that players could be gone for as long as six weeks – a fact that has obviously left several coaches unhappy.
Chelsea, who will be without regulars John Obi Mikel (Nigeria), Didier Drogba and Saloman Kalou (Ivory Coast) and Michael Essien Ghana), have spent 15 million pounds (19.9 million dollars) on Bolton’s French striker Nicolas Anelka in an attempt to overcome the absence of the Africa-bound players.
Everton manager David Moyes tried to push out the departure date of South African Steven Pienaar for a few days to allow the midfielder to play in the League Cup semi-final against Chelsea, but the South African Football Association applied to FIFA, who ordered Pienaar to travel to Africa.
Moyes was not happy with the decision, saying that the FIFA rules were not clear whether clubs have to release players 14 days before the start of the tournament or 14 days before the start of the country’s first match.
“We pay his wages, we pay him well and he is an employee of Everton and 14 days is more than enough time to prepare for the African Cup of Nations – which comes in the middle of our season.”
His Barcelona counterpart Frank Rijkaard had more luck in securing the services of Eto’o, who was allowed by Barcelona to stay behind for a few days longer to play some extra games.
But while the Dutch coach might have scored a small victory, he will still be without the striker for several weeks, as Eto’o becomes one of many, many players who have left their clubs to play in the African Cup of Nations – often leaving their managers fuming.