KopTalk.com Forums Football Liverpool FC Forum PL clubs braced for AFCON & Olympics disruption!

Premier League clubs braced for Africa Cup of Nations & Olympics disruption

Mohamed Salah, Sadio Mane and Naby Keita could miss a chunk of next season due to international commitments.

Premier League clubs will face disruption next season after Cameroon announced the Africa Cup of Nations will be moved from the summer to January 2021.

The tournament was due to be held in June and July but, due to weather conditions in the country at that time of year, the Cameroon Football Federation has decided to stage it between January 9 and February 6.

"It (2021 Africa Cup of Nations) will be played in Cameroon from January 9 to February 6, 2021. Date changed for weather reasons at Cameroon's request," the federation posted on Twitter after a meeting with representatives from the Confederation of African Football.

The move will have major implications for Premier League clubs with Liverpool likely to be particularly badly affected with Mohamed Salah (Egypt), Sadio Mane (Senegal) and Naby Keita (Guinea) all potentially unavailable to play for the club during that period.

Salah could miss even more football for Liverpool next season with Egypt U23 coach Shawky Gharib indicating last November that he would like the forward as one of three over-age players in his squad for this summer's Tokyo Olympics.

Egypt have already qualified for the Games which will run from July 22 to August 8, and Salah's participation could see him unavailable for Liverpool's opening matches of next season.

Arsenal's Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang (Gabon) and Nicolas Pepe (Ivory Coast) are also likely to feature in addition to Manchester City's Riyad Mahrez as well as a number of other Premier League club first-team players.

Since 1960, the tournament was always held during winter or early spring, mainly due to climate reasons and to avoid conflict with other international tournaments or club competitions, but it was changed last year when Egypt hosted the first summer tournament.

https://www.skysports.com/football/news/...ions-disruption

Read about AFCON yesterday. Stupid to move in back to January and disrupt most top leagues.

As for the olympics? No point football being in it. Football has enough competitions that take players from their clubs so why do it for that ball hang too?

I think clubs can say no to Olympics as they have power but afcon is a huge problem. A lot of clubs need to come together to change that but at the same time, players would naturally want to represent their country and rightly so and this is their their competition. We shouldn't blame the players as the authorities need to come up with a solution. Klopp is going to be livid.

What I don't get is, why is the AFCON on so often? It's every 2 years isn't it?

World cup is once every 4 year, Euros is every 4 year, Olympics every 4 years. Why does AFCON feel the need to run twice as often?!

The last Afcon was in the summer and it was successful. I don't understand this.

Blame FIFA for this. They set a precedent giving Qatar the World Cup in 2022 and then allowing them to change it to a Nov/Dec tournament due to the weather. Now Cameroon have played exactly the same card.

In future dates should be set before bids are accepted. If you can't hold the tournament at the prescribed time then don't bid for it. The Qatar World Cup will throw all European football into complete chaos.

Having said that I don't think our own FA plans well at all. The recent event forcing us to play the League Cup game v Villa a day before we represented our FA and UEFA in a major tournament springs to mind.


You can't run tournaments hoping certain things happen that get you out of a hole.

A lot of countries, most of them in central Africa cannot organise a tournament in June-August because of heavy rainfall. I think they will change the dates whenever needed depending on where it will be held and players and clubs have no option but to adhere as per FIFA rules. When we bought out African players the tournament was being held in Jan, so we need to take that into account

Whatever happens, Klopp is not stupid. He will find solutions and our squad should get better every summer as we win more trophies.

Already we can see how Klopp is not just shaping the first team but also the fringe and younger players. That will be vitally important when the likes of AFCON and The World Cup come around. Too many of the significant teams are focused on their immediate first team and will not be prepared.