AFCON 2021: FIFA’s decision affected our preparations – Milovan Rajevac
Black Stars head coach Milovan Rajevac has expressed his displeasure about FIFA’s decision which permitted European clubs to keep hold of AFCON bound players till January 3, six days before kickoff of the competition.
The build up to AFCON has been dominated by exchanges between CAF, FIFA and European clubs. The ECA, who are against the timing of the tournament, were unwilling to release their players with reasons of an upsurge in the coronavirus pandemic.
FIFA president Gianni Infantino has also been vocal about the timing of the tournament suggesting for it to be pushed to the autumn. CAF have however been against another postponement of the tournament and insisted that the games will go on as scheduled.
After series of tussles amongst the three parties, an agreement was reached for AFCON bound players in European Leagues to join their respective national teams after early new year games.
The Black Stars scheduled 17-day training camp for the 30 invited players was not actualized as the decision of FIFA distracted many nations and Milo revealed the Black Stars were largely hit.
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“Unfortunately this decision from FIFA to allow players to stay in their clubs in this period affected our plans for the preparation since most of the time we didn’t have many players to work with. Many training sessions we had 7 or 8 players and 3 goalkeepers so it’s very difficult to do some tactical work to prepare the team the way we planned in the beginning.
“Even today we had like 13 players and 4 goalkeepers. Tonight few of them will arrive so definitely we are affected, but it affected the other teams as well. So this was not a usual preparation for a big competition because usual preparation you have two weeks to work with the full team.
“This was totally different. Let’s hope that everything will be okay at the tournament. We’re gathering, we have a good atmosphere so let’s hope everything will be okay,” Milo said to the GFA.
The Black Stars will face Algeria on January 5 in an international friendly before kicking off their AFCON campaign versus Morocco on January 10.
