Online Reporter
THE Africa Cup of Nations — the continent’s biennial equivalent of the Copa America and the European Championship — is forever fighting for validation and acceptance in some quarters.
The 2025 edition begins in December and that was made to know its place, shunted from its usual January-to-February slot by an expanded 2026 World Cup and a larger-than-life Champions League.
There’s a pecking order, see, and Africa isn’t top of it.
That point was reiterated on Sunday by Jamie Carragher, the retired Liverpool defender who works as a TV pundit for Sky Sports in the UK and CBS in the United States.
In a conversation about Mohamed Salah’s standing in football, Carragher ruffled feathers by saying the forward’s legacy was hindered by his failure to win a major international competition.
The Africa Cup of Nations, it was quickly put to him, is exactly that.
Forget for a moment that Salah hasn’t won AFCON with Egypt (he was a losing finalist in 2017 and 2021).
The reason the exchange caught fire was because of Carragher’s reaction — pulling a face, muttering, “oh my God” — to the idea that the trophy represented an elite badge of honour.
It made headlines and provoked this column by The Athletic’s Jay Harris, who called AFCON “the most disrespected competition in football”.
Jay also explains how Carragher later tried to defend his stance.
There’s no point in pretending AFCON is perfect. Attendances can be patchy. Pitches can be patchier again, and logistics aren’t always first rate.
AFCON 2023 was postponed to 2024 to negate extreme heat. The 2025 finals were awarded to Guinea until preparations veered badly off schedule. Morocco will host them instead.
Moreover, it is often cast as a nuisance. A perennial bone of contention is that for many parts of the globe, the competition falls mid-season.
Clubs are obliged to release anybody called up. That can, for example, leave Liverpool without Salah for the best part of a month. And nothing is more sure of its own importance than the Premier League.
But to speak to some of the players who feature at AFCON is to understand how emotionally invested in it they are. The finals can be full-blown festivals.
They burst with drama and politics. Salah’s enthusiasm for representing Egypt oozes (and he’s indicative of the fact that a number of top-tier footballers tend to feature). In our experience, it’s highly watchable.
Lucas Radebe, the former South African captain and a close friend of the country’s ex-president Nelson Mandela, was an AFCON winner in 1996.
We interviewed him during the 2023 edition, and he said: “I get goosebumps when I talk about 1996. The whole thing was electrifying. Winning it was out of this world.” There speaks a man who had many, many adventures.
Like Jay, The Athletic’s Simon Hughes has covered AFCON on the ground.
“So much depends on the conditioning of the players, as well as the conditions they’re performing in,” Simon said. “Geography defines any conclusion. The 2025 edition is being held in a temperate climate in the middle of the European season, where many of the best players are based. In theory, the football should be better than ever.”
The game exists in a world which is getting smaller and opening up. There’s fresh appeal in more far-flung tournaments like AFCON, and club competitions like South America’s Copa Libertadores. And if they matter to enough people — which AFCON certainly does — they matter full stop. – The Athletic/Sports Reporter
