In July, Equatorial Guinea were thrown out of AFCON 2015 for fielding an ineligible player, Thierry Fidjeu, against Mauritania even after they won 3-1 on aggregate in the first round of the qualifiers.
“It’s like CAF have gone back to eat their own vomit,” said David Akpeyi.
Another fan, Sunday Alabi said: “It’s a shame that Equatorial Guinea have been brought back through the back door to a competition they have disqualified for fielding an ineligible player against Mauritania.”
“CAF were just too desperate! That’s just it,” lamented Grace Daniel.
However, some other fans would rather commend both CAF and Equatorial Guinea for saving next year’s AFCON.
“When you consider the fact that Morocco left CAF with very few options after their excuse over Ebola, we should rather commend both CAF and Equatorial Guinea for saving a tournament that could well have been cancelled altogether,” argued Norbert Emeka.
“Equatorial Guinea have done very well to save the AFCON after Morocco tried to mess up the rest of Africa. Several other countries like South Africa, Ghana and Algeria rejected the offer to stage the tournament in place of Morocco,” added Abdul Jibrin.
It is also left to be seen how the island-nation will cope with welcoming 16 teams and not eight teams when they first hosted the competition in 2012 along with Gabon.
Shortage of hotel space and the prohibitive cost of living will deter thousands of fans from the competition next year, like was the case two years ago.
No comments:
Post a Comment