Online Reporter
Former Bafana Bafana coach Augusto Palacios has accused FIFA of undermining the Africa Cup of Nations.
To accommodate next season’s FIFA World Cup scheduled to take place in June 2026, the TotalEnergies AFCON tournament will now kick-off in December 2025, and to protect European clubs from losing their best players from Africa early, FIFA has reduced the mandatory player release for clubs to seven days before the start tournament.
“I’m very disappointed with the way FIFA undermine Africa, and it is not the first time,” Palacios tells Kick-Off.
“Europe play Europe, everyone must be there on time. How can you prepare your team one week ahead of a big tournament? AFCON is our main tournament.
“What FIFA is doing now is the main reason clubs from Europe always try to convince players from the continent of Africa to undermine the AFCON, hence our African players don’t perform the way we know they can because they can’t wait to go back to Europe.
“We understand the Europeans pay our players better salaries than we do, but this is very bad for the reputation of Africa.
“Africa needs to stand up so that our AFCON is valued. I don’t think the preparations for Bafana Bafana is going well, we are missing some of the overseas players. When you have your whole squad that’s when your preparations will be okay.
“How can we talk of one week preparations when we still need to fly to Morocco. It’s impossible for Hugo Broos to do the full job when he doesn’t have his whole team with him. It’s unbalanced the preparations.”—Kickoff.com
