Africa awaits

Tensions bubbling up ahead of Nations Cup

By Gavin Hamilton, World Soccer Magazine

Find out more about World Soccer magazine's online subscription offer.

The African Nations Cup kicks off in Tunisia in less than a fortnight's time. So it must be time for Premiership clubs to start denigrating the competition.

"The rules are so unfair!" complained Bolton manager Sam Allardyce, sounding like Harry Enfield's petulant teenager.

Allardyce wanted his Nigerian midfielder Jay-Jay Okocha to retire from international football in order to play for Bolton in their quest for Carling Cup glory. Not a difficult decision for Jay-Jay -- especially as his contract expires in the summer.

Weigh it up: would you rather play in a League Cup semifinal with Bolton or have the possibility for African Nations Cup glory with Nigeria. And there's the rub.

For African players, the Nations Cup is second only to the World Cup in standing. Their managers may want to paint a different picture, but for many players, the 2004 Nations Cup will be their best chance of international recognition and, they hope, success.

Allardyce, of course, is the king of the cut-price transfer and loan deal. He is a canny operator in the European transfer market, prepared to take a risk on a player who might not fit in. So when he signs an African player like Okocha, he knows exactly what he is getting.

The rules may be unfair, Sam, but they are there for a reason.

Tottenham can feel a little hard done in the case of Freddy Kanoute and Mali. They signed Kanoute, a former French Under-21 international, believing him to be qualified for France. It is was only a change -- long overdue, mind you -- in FIFA's regulations that allowed Kanoute to switch his allegiance to the country of his father's birth. So Spurs are left licking their wounds

Yet there was no excuse for the bleating nonsense from David Pleat, who said he didn't know where Mali was is Africa. In his TV commentaries, Pleat likes to give the impression that he is a knowledgeable man of the people. Don't worry, David, we haven't been fooled.

The biggest scandal is not that Tottenham have been hard done by (they did sign three strikers in the summer, after all). The real scandal is the way, prior to the recent rule change, that the French federation used the FIFA regulations on international eligibility to force young players of African parentage to choose France ahead of their homelands.

Imagine a France team shorn of Marcel Desailly (born in Ghana), Claude Makelele (DR Congo) and Patrick Vieira (Senegal) -- not to mention Zinedine Zidane (Algerian parents) and David Trezeguet (raised in Argentina)!

Kanoute is by no means the only former French Under-21 player to switch nationalities and be called up for the 2004 Nations Cup. Mohamed Lamine Sissko of Valencia is also in the Mali squad, while Lamine Sakho, the Marseille striker on loan at Leeds, has been called up by Senegal.

Antar Yahia, French-born and based at Bastia, became the first player to benefit from the FIFA rule change when he scored for Algeria in an Olympic qualifier against Ghana on Jan. 4. Yahia was included in Algeria's preliminary squad for the Nations Cup, along with Abdenasser Ouadah (Belgium's Excelsior Mouscron) and Samir Beloufa (French club Ajaccio).

More and more African players are now likely to choose the country their parents' birth ahead of their own birthplace. That is likely, as Arsene Wenger has noted, to make some European clubs think twice about signing them.

In countries such as Germany where the long winter break coincides with the Nations Cup, African players are not likely to be passed over. But in England, Spain and Italy, we are likely to see more examples of players surrendering their international careers in favor of their clubs.

Quinton Fortune (Man Utd and South Africa), Lauren (Arsenal and Cameroon) and Obafemi Martins (Internazionale and Nigeria) are just three high-profile players who will miss the Nations Cup in Tunisia after putting club before country.

The only long-term solution would be a change in calendar, staging the Nations Cup in late May or early June, roughly the same time as the European championships, Copa America and Asian Cup.

The major objection would be the intense climate in Africa at that time of year. But some sort of compromise is needed to prevent the situation deteriorating in future years.

Gavin Hamilton is editor of World Soccer magazine. The opinions expressed here are solely those of the writer.