{"id":4614,"date":"2025-12-24T16:17:55","date_gmt":"2025-12-24T16:17:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/?p=4614"},"modified":"2026-01-14T18:55:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T18:55:12","slug":"the-betrayal-of-afcon-part-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/2025\/12\/24\/the-betrayal-of-afcon-part-one\/","title":{"rendered":"The Betrayal of AFCON (Part One)<\/strong>"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Satish Sekar \u00a9 Satish Sekar (December 20th<\/sup> 2025)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Under Pressure<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Morocco coach Walid Regragui is under pressure to not only put up a good showing at Morocco\u2019s second Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) win a second star for the Atlas Lions. They won in 1976 \u2013 their only victory in Africa\u2019s premier football event with a unique format \u2013 and hosted for the first time in 1988. This is their second time hosting Africa’s prized football event. Regragui says he does not feel the pressure despite Morocco\u2019s success in Qatar\u2019s World Cup raising expectations in the country \u2013 success breeds demand for bigger and better things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His task has been made even more difficult because FIFA reduced the time for players to report for the tournament from 15 days to seven, but even that was not enough for some. Manchester United felt that they had been treated unfairly over their request to keep defender Noussair Mazraoui for their match against AFC Bournemouth, which had been moved to Monday December 15th<\/sup> for television reasons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Manchester United appealed to FIFA when Morocco refused to permit Mazraoui\u2019s departure to be delayed, claiming that they were being treated unfairly. FIFA encouraged countries and clubs to negotiate, but there had already been a massive compromise by African football as FIFA had already cut their preparation time by more than half. African nations lived with it even though that meant inadequate preparation time, which may affect the quality of the football \u2013 was it the intention that this would undermine AFCON and strengthen demands for AFCON to be reduced from every two years to every four years \u2013 something FIFA president Gianni Infantino has made no secret of his support for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Gianni Infantino at a Mixed Zone<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Real Unfairness<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

That reduction in preparation time was not enough for some. While the European clubs pay the players\u2019 wages and understandably want their players to be available for them, especially over the Christmas period, this AFCON is different. When Morocco bid for the tournament originally, they wanted to host in the summer just past \u2013 CAF agreed to that and it should have happened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If the tournament had taken place in the northern hemisphere\u2019s summer as Morocco wanted and Africa had been pushed to deliver for years by European clubs in particular, there would have been no problem over releasing players for it from Europe. So, why didn\u2019t this happen? FIFA President Gianni Infantino won support for a revamped and bigger Club World Cup tournament to take place in the summer. But why did that happen? It was obvious, or should have been that this would benefit the 32 clubs taking part, the hosts, the USA, and FIFA, but who would it harm?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whether this idea \u2013 implemented \u2013 won support from football\u2019s governing bodies or not is irrelevant. AFCON has a 68-year history. It has tradition, history and sporting excellence on its side. No other confederation was obliged to shift its previously scheduled dates for its marquee tournament to accommodate a new tournament apart from Asia, which ever gets the flak Africa does for its tournament taking place during the top European seasons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The decision to accommodate the CWC meant that date-juggling was required. Morocco was determined to host its third AFCON this year and that meant it would happen at some point during the main European nations\u2019 seasons. That meant the usual rows would occur, but this time the European clubs got it wrong \u2013 Morocco was not the villain; it was the victim.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Satish Sekar \u00a9 Satish Sekar (December 20th 2025) Under Pressure Morocco coach Walid Regragui is under pressure to not only put up a good showing [\u2026]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3076,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[16,17],"tags":[1654,88,1656,1657,35,103,1545,81,1653,1224,423,1655,641],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4614"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4614"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4614\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4666,"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4614\/revisions\/4666"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3076"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}