Africa Cup Poll

[rowan]

UPDATE: Cameroon score again, and time's almost up. 1-2.

UPDATE: 80 Mins 1-1 Lions dominating...

HT Pharaohs 1 Indomitable Lions 0

I can't get a stream tonight, but looks like the goal was against the run of play...

[rowan]

Cameroon win it 2-1, overcoming a halftime deficit. They are now the second most successful team in tournament history with 5 trophies, behind the Egyptians, who remain on 7. Sounds like it was quite a game!

Strange thing about Egypt - they had a pretty decent World Cup in 1990 with draws against Holland and Ireland and just a 0-1 reversal against an England team that went all the way tot he semis. But they haven't qualified since.

[rowan]

Heart-warming story about an African player:

Racially abused by their fans, Togolese striker Francis Kone has taken on hero status after saving a rival goalkeeper’s life in a Czech top-flight game last weekend.

Half an hour into Saturday’s tie pitting Bohemians 1905 Prague against Kone’s FC Slovacko, Bohemians keeper Martin Berkovec sprinted towards the edge of the box to head out a long pass.

He crashed into his teammate, defender Daniel Krch, who was also running after the ball at full speed.

The home crowd in Prague watched in horror as the impact left the 28-year-old Berkovec unconscious on the pitch with a swallowed tongue.

Swept to the ground by the tumbling keeper Slovacko striker Kone was first to provide emergency first aid as soon as he stood up.

“I was close because I was involved in the play,” Kone told AFP on Monday.

He managed to pull out Berkovec’s tongue in the time it took Bohemians’ medical staff to arrive at the scene after waiting for the referee to wave them onto the pitch and run some 60 metres (yards).

“Seconds matter in a situation like this. If you swallow your tongue you start to choke, the flow of air into the brain stops, so you have to act as fast as possible,” said Bohemians spokesman Tomas Mutinsky.

“If Martin is in a stable condition today, it is largely thanks to Francis,” he told AFP.

– ‘Endless seconds’ –

“I would like to thank Francis Kone for his prompt help that saved my life. Once again, THANK YOU,” Berkovec wrote on Facebook.

The keeper is set to meet his saviour soon.

“He has invited me for dinner,” said Kone.

One Bohemians fan tweeted his thanks to Kone after the goalless draw: “He taught me something today, and not only me.”

Another fan who was in the stands on Saturday told Bohemians’ club website how Kone’s quick thinking had impacted on the club’s hard core fans.

“Two guys were sitting next to me. Racists. Their language was…(racist), monkey stuff,” he said.

“And then comes the shock. Endless seconds. Martin falls and doesn’t move. Kone is the first to arrive. He pulls the keeper’s tongue out. A rival. A black guy.”

“The entire stadium is silent, including the two guys. I don’t give a damn about the score. Martin will be OK, Francis Kone helped him. A rival? A black? A man!”

Born in Bondoukou in the northeast of Ivory Coast, Kone has taken advantage of his mother’s nationality to play for Togo since 2013.

At 26, he has had a varied career, having played for several clubs in Thailand (Muangthong United FC, PTT Rayong), Oman (Al-Musannah), Portugal (Olhanense) and Hungary (Honved Budapest) before joining Slovacko in 2015.

“This is the fourth time it has happened to me — (I’ve experienced this) once in Thailand and twice in Africa,” said Kone.

“No, I don’t have medical education,” he chuckles.

“In this type of situation, I always make sure whether the player has not swallowed his tongue.”

https://worldsoccertalk.com/2017/02/27/ ... zech-fans/

[rowan]

Mali, which competed in this year's African Cup, has just been suspended by FIFA for government interference in administration

http://www.rfi.fr/afrique/20170318-fifa ... 2017-03-18

[rowan]

Bit of a sad story here. I used to watch these guys play, and we even had the odd African player make up the numbers in a few of our own games and I can only say that they were MUCH to quick for me and helped me into retirement However, the story does not mention the case of Nigerian youth Festus Okey, who was shot while in police custody about a decade ago.




ISTANBUL, Turkey - “My father gave me all his savings to help me come to Istanbul. He knows I am good at football and the whole community is watching me,” says Alex Epome, a 17-year-old footballer from Cameroon.

Thanks to good airline connections to Africa and flexible visa policies, Istanbul has become the main destination for those who dream about better wages and a career in Turkey, a gateway to Europe.

Last year, Alex was a second division player with a local team in his home country. Hoping to provide a better future for his family, Epome packed up everything and moved to the shores of the Bosphorus in pursuit of a professional football career.


Alex Epome dreams of being recruited into a professional team in Turkey or Europe (MEE/Thomas Lecomte)
“What I earned in Cameroon was just enough to buy bread. I had to walk to the training [field] as I couldn’t pay for the bus ride,” says Epome. “For me any club would be great. I do it for my family, with the help of God,” he adds.

According to Bertrand-Joseph Ndong, Epome’s agent and a former Cameroonian coach, a fourth division player in a Turkish club earns an average of $8,400 a year, in comparison to a few hundred dollars in any African club.


Bertrand-Joseph Ndong’s team is playing a friendly match against footballers from Mali (MEE/Thomas Lecomte)
Epome is now training to compete in the African Cup of Nations, a friendly tournament that takes place every year in the central neighbourhood of Ferikoy.

But this year the municipality of Fatih, which has funded the tournament for a few years, withdrew its funding due to the state of emergency and other security concerns, according to Ndong, who is one of the main organisers of the event.



FC Lampedusa: Germany's international refugee football team
In 2016, Turkey was hit with a series of bomb attacks that killed at least 385 people. In April 2017, Turkey extended its state of emergency for three months, its third such extension after a coup attempt last July.

However, the organisers say they will still go ahead with the tournament taking place on 24 June. "We will still organise it anyway,” explains Ndong, adding that each competing team will have to contribute around $140 to fund the event.

To prepare for the competition, Epome follows a strict daily training schedule of three hours at Nndong’s private training centre, Soccer International Business Management.


Bertrand-Joseph Ndong’s players during their daily training in Kurtulus (MEE/Thomas Lecomte)
But other African players have not been as lucky as Epome, lured by illegitimate agents claiming strong ties to Turkey and based on void promises of fame and financial stability.

In 2008, 27-year-old Pascal Eneh gave up his career as a midfield first division football player in a Nigerian club to pursue a professional career in Turkey. An unofficial recruiter from Nigeria convinced him that he had a shot with the football club Muglaspor, in southwest Turkey. He was affiliated with a Turkish manager who had helped gain the trust of Eneh, who paid him $2500 in advance. "After three days in the hotel [in Mugla], [the agent] disappeared - he had dumped me,” Eneh says. Yet returning to Nigeria was out of the question for Eneh. “I was in Turkey already, I had to try,” he adds.

'What I earned in Cameroon was just enough to buy bread. I had to walk to the training [field] as I couldn’t pay the bus ride'

- Alex Epome, football player from Cameroon
In 2016, after years of trying to get recruited, Eneh decided to start coaching other aspiring African football players, after realising that he was too old to start a professional football career.

For a small commission, Eneh usually conducts his training sessions three days a week in a public football field in the working-class neighbourhood of Kurtulus. To make a decent living for himself, however, he does other odd jobs on the side.

Since going back to their homelands empty-handed is associated with shame and failure, players like Eneh who are stranded in Turkey usually decide to stay.


Alex Epome used to play in a first division club in Cameroon (MEE/Thomas Lecomte)
"If I don’t succeed, my family won’t either. My father’s dream will be wasted,” says Epome.

‘If I don’t succeed, my family won’t either. My father’s dream will be wasted’

- Alex Epome, football player from Cameroon
To complicate matters more, many risk staying in Turkey with expired visas. If they are caught by security forces, they are arrested and sometimes deported.

Germain Blaise Mbeh regrets staying in Turkey since he arrived in May 2015. He constantly considers moving back to his home in Cameroon, but admits it is difficult to actually go through with it.

“If I fail, my family will be disappointed,” says Mbeh.

He initially travelled to Turkey for a test match in Bursa, in the south of Istanbul, but the match never actually took place.

"When I tell Africans that Turkey is difficult, they don’t believe me,” explains Mbeh.

Mbeh decided to stay in Turkey and depends on earnings his family sends from a small family business back in Cameroon. He is now training with Eneh for the African Cup of Nations in hope of getting recruited by a Turkish team.

Victor Nnah Nathan Ejekwu, 22, had a similar experience to what Eneh and Mbeh went through. Coming from Port Harcourt in southern Nigeria, he landed in Istanbul in 2014 after playing for mediocre local clubs for a few years.


Victor Nnah Nathan Ejekwu landed in Turkey in 2014 for a test match but was cheated by a shady agent (MEE/Thomas Lecomte)
“An agent told me to come to Turkey for a test match. I paid him $1700 for that,” he says.

“When I arrived, the test never took place,” he added.

Clement Lopez, a migration researcher at the University of Paris-Sud, told MEE that most illegitimate agents depend on verbal agreements and persuasion, although some use fake invitations from clubs.

'Racism is the worst thing here, it’s all the time, small things, insults, threats'

- Germain Mbeh, football player from Cameroon
"Usually a lie well told can convince a player who has high hopes to leave to Europe, [and who] totally lacks lucidity; same for the families,” he says, adding that they also take advantage of inexperienced, naive players.

According to Lopez, controlling recruitment and preventing scams is difficult. Legitimate recruiters should have an official licence from FIFA, the body that runs world football, and they should never be paid in advance by the players.

Struggling to find work

To be able to survive in Turkey, many players have to juggle between a strict training regimen and work.

Ejekwu landed a gig singing hip-hop and performing shows imitating Michael Jackson in clubs and churches on weekends and evenings, while he reserves his mornings for training with Eneh. This helps him pay rent for the tiny flat he shares with four others, deep in the basement of a crumbling building in Kurtulus.

The flat has no windows and no ventilation. The air inside is thick and mould stains the walls.

Mbeh says that finding paid jobs is difficult for Africans.

“The only jobs we can find here are difficult and barely paid, if paid at all,” says Mbeh.

‘I put on my music and let it fly’

Racism is another recurring issue the African footballers face as they try to make it in Turkey.

"I never fought in my life until I came to Istanbul. I don’t want it but some people are constantly bullying me,” says Ejekwu.


When they call you 'Negro': Egypt’s Sudanese are prisoners of racism
Ejehwu recalls one night on his way home from work when a group of people attacked and robbed him because of the colour of his skin.

“I had to beg them to let me at least keep my shoes,” he says. “It was humiliating.”

Mbeh says he has often been called a “negro”, compared to a monkey and told several times to go back to his country.

‘I never fought in my life until I came to Istanbul’

- Victor Ejekwu, football player from Nigeria
“Racism is the worst thing here, it’s all the time, small things, insults, threats,” says Mbeh. “What can I do? I put on my music and let it fly.”

But on the football field, walls dissolve and racist slurs disseminate under the heels of a good game.

‘If you play well, they will love you,” says Severin Brice Bikoko, a football player with the Turkish team Kayseri Erciyesspor.

Bikoko is one of the African footballers that made it in Turkey after a lot of training and perseverance.

‘I wasn’t good enough for them’

In the early years of his career, Bikoko tried many times to join teams in Europe, but he was never selected. This included a test with Monaco for playing in the French championship.

“The reality was that I wasn’t good enough for them,” he explains. “When you fail, you should go back home and train harder to get better.”

Bikoko was eventually approached in Cameroon by a British agent licensed by FIFA.

A few weeks later, Bikoko started training with Kayseri Erciyesspor, a team in Turkey’s second division. He now has sights on Fenerbahce, one of Turkey’s best teams.

‘Many African players come to Turkey with the idea of starting a career, but some don’t have the level at all’

- Bertrand-Joseph Ndong, agent and a former Cameroonian coach
African players tend to underestimate the level of the Turkish football scene.

“I thought the level of the Turkish championship was low and that I could easily play in first or second division,” explains Dave Stewe, 18, from Cameroon.

After a year in Turkey, Stewe has scaled down his ambitions, as he has not been able to join a club yet.

“It is much harder than I thought,” he says, adding that he realised it very soon after arriving.

Stewe is now training with Eneh, but also studies international relations at Bilgi University, “just to have a plan B in case football doesn’t work”.

“Many African players come to Turkey with the idea of starting a career, but some don’t have the level at all,” Ndong says.

Nndong is currently training 20 football players at his training centre. They all wear the same jersey stamped with the centre’s logo.

'I believe in my talent. I will succeed'

-Victor Ejekwu, football player from Nigeria
"We only train people who have chances of being recruited,” explains Ndong, who organises regular friendly matches with Turkish professional teams so his players can showcase their skills to potential recruiters.

The players do not have to pay for training. If recruited, they give Ndong a percentage of their fee, which is usually around 10 percent.

Many of the players hope to be recruited following the African community football championship, in Istanbul. According to Nndong, last year 200 players were recruited at the end of the event.

“I believe in my talent. I will succeed,” says Ejekwu.
Read more: http://www.middleeasteye.net/in-depth/f ... 1870124243

[rowan]

24 teams yes taking it out of Africa no

The African Cup might be going out of Africa.

The United States, China or Qatar could be asked to host the African Cup of Nations in radical changes proposed Wednesday to give the continent's biggest soccer tournament the global exposure it craves. The proposals were set out in a presentation to the Confederation of African Football by Philippe Antoine, as the spokesman for the Marketing and TV working group.

Antoine told delegates that "the idea of inviting three or four teams from other continents, in addition to 20 or 21 African teams taking part, was also seen favorably ... as was the hypothesis of a final tournament being staged, exceptionally, in a country of another continent."

Some of the ideas floated, like taking the African Cup to another continent or inviting non-African teams to participate, might be a little too radical for CAF to implement, at least right away.

For one thing, what would happen if a non-African team won?

But as CAF executive committee member Danny Jordaan of South Africa said: "If you want to think globally, act globally."

And one change that is expected to be made is moving the Cup of Nations from the start of the year to the European summer months of June and July. That will avoid it taking place at the height of the European league season, a clash which has often undermined the Cup of Nations by making top African players choose between staying with their European clubs — their employers — at a crucial time for them, or representing their country.

Many, like seven of Cameroon's top stars at this year's African Cup in Gabon, choose club over country to the detriment of African soccer's showpiece.

All the proposals for the future of the African Cup were made at CAF's two-day meeting in Rabat, Morocco, on Tuesday and Wednesday. The meeting, an African soccer "symposium," was an opportunity for national coaches, former players and CAF officials to share ideas. FIFA president Gianni Infantino also attended.

Any changes would need to be formally approved by CAF's executive committee, which is expected to meet before CAF's special general assembly, a decision-making meeting, is held in Rabat on Friday.

The move to June and July has widespread support and is expected to be enacted.

Also on the table — and also widely supported and likely to be confirmed — is increasing the number of teams participating from 16 to 24, following the lead of the European Championship, which went to 24 teams last year.

More teams mean more games, and more television and marketing revenue for CAF. The African Cup is by far CAF's biggest source of income.

"The reason we advocated for a 24-team format is very simple," CAF executive committee member Amaju Pinnick said, adding African soccer should expect a significant increase in revenue.

"The more the merrier," he said.

But an add-on to that increase in teams was the suggestion that the 24 could be made up of 20-21 African teams and 2-3 "invitees" from other continents, while the final tournament could head out of Africa.

The focus appeared to be on Qatar, with the committee noting that the 2022 World Cup host country would have all the required infrastructure to hold the Cup of Nations in 2023.

Non-African teams and a non-African host aren't ideas that are likely to be implemented soon, though, if at all. And CAF has already decided the hosts for the next three Cup of Nations, including awarding the 2023 tournament to Guinea.

New CAF president Ahmad of Madagascar, who was elected in March to replace long-standing leader Issa Hayatou, promised a review of the Cup of Nations in his election campaign and has appeared open to the most immediate change, moving the three-week tournament from its normal January-February window to June-July.

That would schedule it in the European leagues' offseason, the window used by the World Cup and the European Championship.

Previous opposition to moving the tournament centered on the African climate, with the middle of the year deemed too hot in North Africa, too cold in southern Africa, and too wet in west and central Africa because of the monsoon months.

But club competitions in Africa are played throughout the year, including June and July. The next African Cup is in Cameroon in 2019.

One thing expected to stay the same is the Cup of Nations being held every two years. CAF has bucked the trend of every other major soccer event to hold its flagship tournament every two and not four years. With the Cup of Nations CAF's biggest and most reliable money-earner, the African soccer body appears unwilling to stage it less frequently.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/s ... 103827148/

[rowan]

24 teams has been approved

[rowan]

Wow

Kenya was stripped of the right to host the 2018 African Nations Championship because of delays in its preparations and the Confederation of African Football opened a new bidding process on Sunday, giving itself just a week to find a new country.

Full story:
http://www.foxsports.com/soccer/story/k ... ent-092417

[rowan]

Morocco has been named as Kenya's replacement to host next year's African Cup. This is undoubtedly compensation for stripping the North African kingdom of its hosting rights a few years ago after it failed to implement the required protection measures against the Ebola Virus. Kenya's loss of hosting rights for 2018 are due to the ongoing political uncertainty in the nation, with the high court ordering a re-run of the recent elections, unprecedented in the East African nation's history.

[rowan]

Morocco just hammered Nigeria 4-0 in the African Cup final