Vusumuzi Dube
Fungai Muderere, Senior Sports Reporter
THE Confederation of African Football (CAF) has released the provincial squad of all the teams that will feature in the continent’s most celebrated football jamboree, Afcon next year.
The contest will be hosted by African football Ivory Coast from January 13 to February 11.
The provisional lists have no more than 55 players and were all submitted before December 14, as per CAF regulations.
The final squads will have twenty-seven players selected from these provisional selections.
The deadline for the submission of the final squads for the tournament is January 3, ten days before the first match of the tournament.
The Zimbabwe Warriors will unfortunately watch from the sidelines when African teams seek to outdo each other.
Zimbabwe and Kenya were excluded from the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) qualifiers having “failed to have their suspensions by FIFA set aside” by CAF.
FIFA had suspended both federations due to “government interference.”
CAF had included them in the official draw earlier in April 2022 on condition that the suspension must be lifted two weeks before their first match day.
Zimbabwe were in Group K with Liberia, Morocco and South Africa whilst Kenya had been drawn in Group C along with Burundi, Cameroon and Namibia.
Zimbabwe have since been readmitted into the international football family and earlier on this year FIFA appointed a Zimbabwe Football Association (ZIFA) Normalisation Committee (NC) led by Licnoln Mutasa to give the game a new face.
Winners and runners-up in the 12 groups qualified for the finals at six venues in the Ivory Coast.
Meanwhile, domestic leagues around the world are reportedly on the collision course with FIFA over a new-look 32-team Club World Cup
FIFA announced that the new-look tournament will take place every four years from 2025 and it will take place during the summer months.
It has been reported that the leagues have lodged a collective formal complaint to the world football governing body over their failure to consult with leagues.
The world’s top leagues, through the World Leagues Forum, are not happy with the arrangement, saying that the tournament will congest their fixture schedule.
The leagues added that FIFA is prioritising their own interests instead by scheduling more matches to generate ever-greater revenue.
With over sixty games played in a month, the tournament will attract more revenue through broadcast and marketing deals.-@FuingaiMuderere
Bongani Ndlovu