From Jurgen Klopp branding Afcon little tournament to Napoli’s President, Aurelio De Laurentiis explosive rants on his players not being available for selection at crucial periods of the season due to AFCON games timing colliding with their season with the likes of Nigeria Victor Osimhen in his paybooks, a pointer of fear for African countries and their players in Europe.
The AFCON takes place every two years and runs for a month from January midway through the season of Europe’s elite leagues.
Kalidou Koulibaly who made his recent switch to Chelsea recently is the captain of the Senegalese team is now off the books for Napoli but Victor Osimhen who is the leading forward man for Nigeria, Andre-Frank Zambo Anguissa of Cameron, and Elif Elmas of Algeria are the three African players in Naples team.
Although Laurentiis admitted his love for African players, he lamented having to pay huge sums of salaries while they are on duty for another course and country and has now decided against signing African players for Napoli with the exception that they sign an initial agreement before permanent purchase that they won’t go for AFCON games, on that ground will he buy African players.
The Serie A side’s star striker is Victor Osimhen, but he did not play for Nigeria at the AFCON earlier this year.
Napoli announced a bout of COVID would keep the prolific forward from representing the Super Eagles, but his withdrawal from selection and the timing of it raised a few eyebrows in Nigeria.
Osimhen scored 18 times in 32 games last season. He played twice more than Zambo Anguissa, but twice less than Koulibaly.
The top appearance maker for Napoli, who finished third in Serie A last season, was midfielder Elif Elmas with 46.
The AFCON only takes place every two years and runs for around a month in January. The 2021 tournament was played this year because COVID prevented it from happening the year prior, so there will be back-to-back tournaments with the 2023 edition coming next January.
With Laurentiis’s taking on the Afcon tournament, it remains unknown going forward if African players in his team will be allowed to participate in the next edition.
