Football News
After the officialization of the date of the competition, Patrick Mboma destroys FIFA
Under pressure from the FIFA Club World Cup, the Confederation of African Football (CAF) made the inevitable decision last June: to postpone the CAN 2025, initially scheduled for the summer, to reschedule it from December 21, 2025 to 18 January 2026 in Morocco.
While CONCACAF (Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Football) continued to hold its 2025 Gold Cup from June 14 to July 6, simultaneously with the Club World Cup (June 15-July 13). 2025), CAF has chosen not to enter into direct competition. She preferred to postpone her emblematic competition to avoid the risk of depriving the CAN of its main stars.
Former CAN champion in 2000 and 2002, and gold medalist at the 2000 Olympic Games, Patrick Mboma, an influential figure in African football, expressed his regret at this decision in an exclusive interview with Afrik-Foot. According to him, this shows a lack of respect towards Africa.
“What I see is that an African Cup of Nations in December/January is unprecedented. In Europe, things are set, it doesn't change, the dates are fixed. Now if we have to create a space, we are encroaching on the weakest if I can express myself that way, and there they are the Africans. They created their Club World Cup, and to find a date for it, we turned to the African competition. The people who manage football must respect each other but unfortunately this is not the case.”
Mboma warns of the consequences of this schedule, which will force nine to ten African selections to link up the CAN and the 2026 World Cup in the space of just six months. He points out that this significantly increases the risk of injury for players.
“We talk about overloaded calendars, and today the African footballer is called upon to play two major competitions in one year and it is not surprising that we can have more African footballers injured.”
Ironically, there is growing uncertainty over whether the Club World Cup will continue as FIFA struggles to find broadcasters willing to pay high sums to show the event. To appease skeptics, FIFA still published, overnight from Saturday to Sunday, the list of 12 stadiums selected to host the competition in the United States.