{"id":1203592,"date":"2022-09-13T17:20:19","date_gmt":"2022-09-13T17:20:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/09\/13\/africans-must-defend-nations-cup-timing\/"},"modified":"2022-09-13T17:20:19","modified_gmt":"2022-09-13T17:20:19","slug":"africans-must-defend-nations-cup-timing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/09\/13\/africans-must-defend-nations-cup-timing\/","title":{"rendered":"Africans must defend Nations Cup timing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<div class=\"td-post-featured-image\">\n<figure><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"696\" height=\"510\" class=\"entry-thumb\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/image_2022-08-22_093754525-696x510.png\"   alt=\"\" title=\"Samuel Eto'o\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo Source: Joy Sports<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p>Former Cameroon striker Samuel Eto\u2019o says it is the duty of Africans to defend the scheduling of the Africa Cup of Nations.<\/p>\n<p>The 2021 tournament was held in Cameroon in January and February this year, in the middle of the European season, to avoid the rainy season in the Central African nation.<\/p>\n<p>The timing of the Nations Cup has\u00a0led to repeated disputes with clubs\u00a0who have been forced to release players, and the issue will persist after the 2023 finals in Ivory Coast were moved to early 2024 because of weather concerns.<\/p>\n<p><!-- \/22191989129,1002554\/MGL\/mgl_ado_atunwa_300x250 --><\/p>\n<p>Napoli owner and president Aurelio de Laurentiis said the Italian club would avoid signing any more Africans unless they agree not to play in the biennial tournament \u2013 with Senegal coach Aliou Cisse hitting back that international football\u00a0should never play second fiddle to club commitments.<\/p>\n<p>Eto\u2019o, who had spells at Real Madrid, Barcelona and Inter Milan and won the Nations Cup twice with the Indomitable Lions, has backed Cisse\u2019s stance.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are Africans \u2013 nobody else can defend our continent better than ourselves,\u201d Eto\u2019o, who is now president of Cameroon\u2019s football federation (Fecafoot), told BBC Sport Africa.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBefore the Nations Cup in Cameroon, I said that it\u2019s important to play in January-February, something that obviously didn\u2019t please some other people.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut this is a fact in Africa. We have the rainy season in June, July, August, even early September in our continent. It\u2019s just a matter of getting on the same page with others and explaining things.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI am rather happy to see children of this continent being aware that nobody else will defend our continent for us.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>However, Eto\u2019o says that staging this year\u2019s World Cup in the middle of the European season shows that concessions can be made by clubs.<\/p>\n<p>Players must be released for the finals in Qatar on 14 November, with the first match six days later and the final on 18 December.<\/p>\n<p>England\u2019s Premier League will have its last pre-World Cup fixtures on the weekend of 12-13 November, and then resume on 26 December.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe can notice for the first time in history that the World Cup will be played in November and December,\u201d Eto\u2019o, 41, said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s possible to make it happen.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>            <!--  [embed]https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=videoseries[\/embed]<!--\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>--><\/p>\n<div class=\"youtube-embed\" data-video_id=\"syy5W41BKE0\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Plastic Usage: FDA refutes alleged health risk in taking alcohol from polythene containers (13-9-22)\" width=\"696\" height=\"392\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/syy5W41BKE0?feature=oembed&#038;enablejsapi=1\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Photo Source: Joy Sports Former Cameroon striker Samuel Eto\u2019o says it is the duty of Africans to defend the scheduling of the Africa Cup of Nations. The 2021 tournament was held in Cameroon in January and February this year, in the middle of the European season, to avoid the rainy season in the Central African [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1186528,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[9871,262,10744,265,18573],"class_list":["post-1203592","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-africans","tag-cup","tag-defend","tag-nations","tag-timing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1203592","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1203592"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1203592\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1203592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1203592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1203592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}