The Senegalese Football Federation (FSF) accused Premier League side Watford of blocking Ismaïla Sarr from playing in the upcoming Africa Cup of Nations.
The Africa Cup of Nations runs between the ninth of January and the sixth of February of 2022 in Cameroon.
Watford star Ismaïla Sarr was excluded from the Senegal squad announced to participate in the tournament, with the reason remaining unclear.
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However, the Senegalese Football Federation decided to speak up about the issue, addressing the reason behind the exclusion, which is according to them, disrespectful, pernicious, and discriminatory behaviour from Watford.
“The Senegalese Football Federation wishes to express by this press release its deep condemnation of the disrespectful, pernicious and discriminatory behaviour of the leaders of Watford who seek by all means to prevent a player from playing with his national team,” FSF statement said.
After the statement was released, Watford replied, claiming that they were transparent about the issues as Sarr is currently suffering an injury and is undergoing rehabilitation.
18 Comments
African need to wake up and rejects all these insults from these Europeans..
Our own NFF will say nothing of such. Imagine the kind of change that be effected if countries and individuals are speaking up like this against a club that is becoming notorious for preventing African players from representing their countries at AFCON. Many of us may not know this. Millwall forced Danny Shiittu to insert in his contract a clause barring him from representing Nigeria at 2013 AFCON. He later regretted this though. I do feel that AFCON is the most disrespected continental show piece in the world like Ian Weight rightly remarked. But who are we in all of this? Our only weapons are our mouth, pen and paper. How far this will go remains to be seen.
Ww have a court of arbitration for sports let african countries seat up and reporting these clubsides that openly or strategically prevents african players from representing their nations from afcon
It’s high time CAF changed the timing of the cup to favour the players and their clubs. The truth is each countries FA benefit from these players so they need to fashion out a way forwards . Europeans are not disrespecting us they have contributed more to the development of these players than African has done . If South America could schedule their cup to be players during break time then we too should consider moving the time of the cup to during season off.
Why will CAF change because of silly Europeans. This disrespect from these Europeans need to stop. They want to dominate everything and its wrong. Why will UEFA get 13 places in world cup when others have less. These days, the money invested in soccer comes from the Arabs. If Europe wants to help African football succeed, they should make world cup participation equal for all regions. We Africans allow all these nonsense, they should try it with the Chinese!!
This has always being my submission. Africans usually don’t look at the bigger picture. How much are players paid in West Africa as compared to the megabucks they receive from European employers? The main purpose for investment is return-of-investment. These Europeans want return of their huge investments in African players. I don’t blame them for trying to block their star-players from going to Afcon.
Africans have two options: Make your leagues viable and vibrant like North African leagues or continue to face the European disgrace.
And is there a problem for the Europeans to adjust their calender to suit the africans (they can have a break!). This same Europeans especially EPL clubs will be sending scouts to afcon to look for the next star and the player they prevented from representing his country will be transfer listed once they no longer needs his service. All this is just for economic reasons. Sky and BBC sports will be showing all afcon games live in the UK. That is huge!
We can’t cos that’s our raining season here in Africa
And secondly the scouts whom are supposed to come around will be busy watching other players play in other tournaments
You are very, very reasonable. That’s the point.
You are very, very reasonable! That’s the point. Those European club sides are paying through their noses, and someone expects them not to retrain those African players. And if nothing is quickly done,this might discourage the European clubs from signing African footballers in the nearest future.
@Respect is Reciprocal: your statement in itself is disrespectful to say the least. Why should Africa bend to the wims and caprices of the hypocritical tendencies of European nations? For your info, African Cup of nations is older than the European championship.As far as I can remember, Africans have always been dictated to in virtually anything we set out do ourselves by the Europeans. This has nothing to do with the timing of the championship but “respect” they should play by the rules.
AFCON 2019 held in Egypt generated $83 million in profits. The 20 teams in the EPL last season shared £2.5 billion with the winner Man City getting £154 million and the last placed team Sheffield United getting £91 million. As a matter of business sense, where would you place your priorities?
Stop that yeye comparison, why can’t so same to European championship and let see the difference?.. Europe cannot dictate to us period !!.. Someone said return on investment , yes because we Africans have the best talents, we get thier cash and return it back with our talent!!.We can’t change the date to suit them whim’s and caprices, they have to give us the respect that we deserve.
In the end, these all boil down to economic power and he who plays the pipe (Europe) sure dictates the tune. Like @John-I, Egypt won’t suffer these issues (cos of their strong economy and league). Same goes for South Africa (if they’d qualified).
While CAF (majority of African nations) are still economically disadvantaged, we’ll negotiate and bend more than fight. Recently, Infantino proposed a 2-year FIFA World Cup. CAF said yes. EUFA and Conmebol said no and that’ll be it.
Curiously, there’s no central voice and CAF president has said nothing about all these. Next AFCON should be moved to June/July abeg. Let’s harmonise the calendar – until majority of African players play on the continent.
*pays the piper dictates the tune.
CSN with endless experimentations. They’ve removed their ridiculous captha requirements, but still no efit button.
You can’t move it to June because of rainy season !!… January is our best bet .Let our African players makes it a priority by inserting it in thier contract that they will be part of Afcon if called by thier respective federation and see if they won’t honor such .Will Liverpool lose Mane or Salah because of Afcon , no!..they will surely agree to such terms .
I support @reciprocal, let us analize this my good people. In the early days of afcon, the bulk of players that percitipate are majorly from local leauge across africa. So caf can afford to place hold on all the league games across african country for afcon at anytime they want.
But things have changed a lot and 80 to 85% of players percitipating are foreign leauge players majorly from europe.
CAF needs to factor that into the planning of this event. Having many foreign players coming together to play in a major tournament in africa like afcon will raise the standard of the game and promote high and good competition among players and country which hence will brings development to soccer in Africa.
If my last statment is also one of the objectives of caf as per afcon, then that timming needs to be checked.
This is not the first time the timming of this torunamemt will be debate and players being whitheld.
Jose morihno at one time had suggested to uefa to suspend league across Europe when Chelsea was to loose many african players to afcon game.
It is not easy lossing your best legs when you need them the most.
FIFA factor this into consideration and will place all league across the world on hold. Uefa knew this and that is why its being played after the season must have been completed.
Africa and her people are part of the globe and we must learn how to plan along with others.we must draw our line of battle well enough as to not to be entangled.
The truth is the timming is not that ideal next time let us look mid year when all league must have been completed.
Just my own submission and not to downgrade afcon or africans.
My submission on this note is for CAF to value herself. We need to check the timing. Also just as Emmanuel Adebayor said and I quote “no coach on earth can stop me from attending AFCON”. Our African players should be as professional as possible by including representing their fathers land on international duty such as AFCON and world cup into their contract. If it were to be the later, no club or coaches would dare stop them because it involves the European players as well. That is my point of submission.