YAOUNDE: After a turbulent build-up, and still under a cloud of doubt, the Africa Cup of Nations finals gets underway in Cameroon on Sunday when the hosts, coached by Portugal’s Toni Conceicao, take on Burkina Faso but with the tournament’s long-term future in doubt.
Africa’s support for FIFA president Gianni Infantino’s proposal to change the frequency of the World Cup to every two years threatens the Cup of Nations, which is already biennial.
Africa’s 54 member associations voted unanimously at last year’s congress to back the idea of a more frequent World Cup, but without discussing how it would affect their own tournament on a packed international calendar.
Now expanding to 24-teams, the Cup of Nations is proving to be a strain on resources.
This edition has been twice postponed, first in 2019 when the Confederation of African Football (CAF) found the country was not ready and took it to Egypt instead, and again last January because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Cameroon had been awarded the finals in 2014 and built new stadiums in Bafoussam, Douala, Limbe and Yaounde but works on the showpiece Olembe Stadium in Yaounde have continued right up to the start of the tournament, proving a major source of concern and contention.
So worried were CAF about the readiness of the venue, plus Cameroons general organisational preparedness, that they held an emergency meeting last month to discuss cancelling the tournament.
That was also motivated by the rapid spread of the Omicron variant of the novel coronavirus and the potential impact it might have on the event but in the end it was decided, amid much disagreement, to go ahead.
Arsenal star Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and his Gabon team-mate Mario Lemina tested positive on Thursday and were in isolation in their hotel.
Senegal, Africa’s top-ranked national team, travelled to Cameroon without three members of their squad who had tested positive.
“Unprecedented times,” tweeted Egypt coach Carlos Queiroz on Friday after reports emerged of positive tests in his squad’s camp. “The more the situation becomes difficult, the more we stay together and strong,” he added.
Covid, though, is far from the only concern in a country dealing with a conflict in the English-speaking west.
Matches in Group ‘F’, featuring Tunisia, Mali, Mauritania and Gambia, are due to be played in Limbe, a coastal city close to Mount Cameroon which is also a hotspot of separatist unrest.
Jihadist raiders also pose a problem in the north, at least beyond the city of Garoua where Salah’s Egypt and Nigeria will play group games.
It is because of the health crisis that organisers have capped crowd limits at 60 percent of capacity, or 80 percent when the hosts play.
Spectators must be vaccinated and have a negative test result, but only six percent of the adult population is inoculated.
Cameroon, though, is football mad and many fans will be desperate to attend games in a country that has only hosted the Cup of Nations once before, in 1972 when there were just eight participants.
The dream for Cameroon this time is to be in the final in the capital Yaounde on February 6, as they look to add to their five titles, a tally bettered only by Egypt, African champions a record seven times.
“We know that Cameroonians have high hopes because the competition is taking place here,” coach Conceicao told the BBC.
However, the nation that gave the world the likes of Roger Milla and Samuel Eto’o — the latter now president of the Cameroonian Football Federation — no longer boasts the same level of stardust.
They have Ajax goalkeeper Andre Onana and Bayern Munich striker Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting and they should certainly qualify from a group also containing Ethiopia and Cape Verde, but the real superstars of the continent will be elsewhere.
Senegal, who face Zimbabwe, Guinea and Malawi in the western city of Bafoussam, boast not just Liverpool forward Sadio Mane but also Chelsea goalkeeper Edouard Mendy, Napoli centre-back Kalidou Koulibaly and Paris St Germain midfielder Idrissa Gana Gueye.
Holders Algeria, unbeaten in 33 competitive games, will be led by Manchester City’s Riyad Mahrez, while Morocco have PSG full-back Achraf Hakimi and Sevilla goalkeeper Yassine Bounou, amongst others.
Little wonder the timing of the tournament, in the middle of the club season in Europe where the majority of African internationals play, drew the ire of clubs who also sought its cancellation.
They were concerned as well about possible quarantine for players returning from Africa to Europe once their participation at the finals was complete, which would extend the time they were away from the clubs.
Managers like Liverpool’s Juergen Klopp — who has lost Mo Salah, Mane and Naby Keita — have been irritated by the fact they have to give up key players at a crucial juncture of their season.
The Cup of Nations is being played in January because of the heavy mid-year rainy season in Cameroon but will revert back to a June-July slot when Ivory Coast host the next finals in 2023.
Published in Dawn, January 9th, 2022