AFCON NOT ENRICHED WITH HOME BASED PLAYERS

The eyes of the African continent are looking forward to exciting action from the 368 players, who will represent the 16 participating countries at the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations in Equatorial Guinea. But, have you wondered how many locally based players will at the AFCON? 

Well, only 71 home based players were able to make the squad lists of their respective nations with DR Congo side TP Mazembe being the African club contributing the highest number of locally based players to the continental football showpiece. 297 from the total number of players are foreign based. Interestingly, The French Ligue 1 has contributed 73 African players to the AFCON 2015, being the league with the highest number of foreign based players at the continental tournament.

Following this statistical analysis, which shows that most of the African countries have their national teams dominated by players from non-African leagues, CAF instructor Coach Mas-ud Dramani says its time home based players were handed the opportunity to play for their national sides in the AFCON competition.

“We need to think about how best we can make use of our local players in the national team. When the players are handed the opportunity to play in the national team, they won’t think f going to Europe to continue their football career.

This is because of of these players play in lower division in abroad but are call up in the senior team. So if a player is playing for kotoko and he is not recognized, he will rather go to the European countries and play in even a lower division club because in that way he will get a chance to play in the senior national team”.