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African countries battle for AFCON 2024 qualification

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The race for qualification for the 2024 TotalEnergie African Nations Cup (AFCON) will be taking centre stage beginning from Wednesday when a total of 48 national teams will slug it out for the tournament scheduled for Ivory Coast in between January and February 2024.

The fight for a place in the championship will see 42 direct entries and six winners from the preliminary round, with teams divided into twelve groups of four teams from Group A to Group L.

Senegal, the defending champions of the Africa Cup of Nations as well as the hosts have qualified automatically, leaving the rest of the continent to battle for their spot.

The twelve group winners and runners-up will qualify for the final tournament with the 48 national teams seeded into four pots of twelve based on the FIFA World Rankings that came out on 31 March 2022.

Going by the new format, Ivory Coast, will still take part in the qualifiers but their guaranteed spot in the finals means only the highest-ranked team in their group apart from them will qualify while the other teams’ qualifications will be determined by their matches and results against Ivory Coast.

AFCON 2023 qualifiers schedule:

March 22

Benin vs Rwanda

Sierra Leone vs Sao Tome and Principe

March 24

Madagascar vs Central African Republic

Congo vs South Sudan

Zambia vs Lesotho

Ghana vs Angola

March 24

Gabon vs Sudan

Algeria vs Niger

DR Congo vs Mauritania

Uganda vs Tanzania

Ivory Coast vs Comoros

Cape Verde vs Eswatini

Nigeria vs Guinea-Bissau

South Africa vs Liberia

March 25

Mali vs Gambia

Equatorial Guinea vs Botswana

Senegal vs Mozambique

Egypt vs Malawi

Burkina Faso vs Togo

Tunisia vs Libya

Cameroon vs Namibia

Guinea vs Ethiopia

March 26

Lesotho vs Zambia

Sao Tome and Principe vs Sierra Leone

March 27

Rwanda vs Benin

South Sudan vs Congo

Central African Republic vs Madagascar

Guinea-Bissau vs Nigeria

Angola vs Ghana

Niger vs Algeria

March 28

Sudan vs Gabon

Ethiopia vs Guinea

Eswatini vs Cape Verde

Malawi vs Egypt

Botswana vs Equatorial Guinea

Namibia vs Cameroon

Liberia vs South Africa

Tanzania vs Uganda

Mozambique vs Senegal

Gambia vs Mali

Comoros vs Ivory Coast

Togo vs Burkina Faso

Libya vs Tunisia

Mauritania vs DR Congo

Sports

Liverpool legend Graham Souness wants ‘selfish’ Salah to leave club

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One of the legends of English Premier League club, Liverpool, Graeme Souness, wants Egyptian star, Mohamed Salah, to leave the club due to his “extreme selfish” nature.

Souness who was reacting to the celebrated touchline dispute between Salah and manager Jurgen Klopp during the club’s league match against West Ham last weekend, described Salah as the most selfish player he has ever seen.

Salah got into trouble with Liverpool fans when he was preparing to come on as a substitute, having been selected on the bench for the second time in three games.

Video footage that captured the scene showed Klopp walking up to the Egyptian and whisper something in his ear but whatever the manager said seemed to infuriate Salah who flared up leading to an exchange of words between the duo.

The two have played down the confrontation with Klopp insisting that whatever issue they had has been “completely resolved.”

Klopp who spoke on Friday at a press conference ahead of Liverpool’s home match with Tottenham in the Premier League on Sunday, insisted that his spat with the star forward would not damage to their relationship going forward.

“If we wouldn’t know each other for that long, I don’t know how we would deal with it, but we know each other for that long and respect each other too much that it’s really no problem,” Klopp said.

“In general, the best situation would be everybody is in the best possible place, we win games, we score lots of goals.

“Yes, then the situation with Salah would probably not have been exactly like that. Then Mo wouldn’t have been on the bench in the first place,” the manager said.

However, while speaking on William Hill’s Three Up Front podcast on Friday, Souness called Salah a selfish player and expects him to leave Liverpool.

“Salah is the most selfish player I have ever witnessed. Even before that game, whenever Klopp takes him off, he is never happy about it,” Souness said.

“That is what you want from your players; if you take them off on two goals, they should want to stay on to score a third. When Sadio Mane was there, they’d fall out all the time,” Souness added.

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Why Zambia’s women national team could miss Olympics

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Zambia’s women national football team is on the verge of missing out on playing at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.

This is after world football governing body, FIFA, threatened to suspend the Football Association of Zambia (FAZ) following accusations of money laundering offences levelled against its president, Andrew Kamanga, as well as allegations of “undue influence by third parties”.

Kamanga who has be the FAZ president since 2016, was last week, arrested by the country’s Drug Enforcement Commission (DEC) along with the Secretary-General, Reuben Kamanga and two other persons, over an alleged money laundering running into K341,902.

The arrested officials have already been charged by the DEC for allegedly obtaining government funds under false pretences and being part of a conspiracy to defraud.

The anti-graft agency alleged that Kamanga used the money to fund trips for two associates to the Africa Cup of Nations in Ivory Coast early this year.

Kamanga and Reuben were charged along with Madalitso Kamanga and Jairous Siame, who travelled to the tournament as part of FAZ’s support staff though are not working with FAZ.

Indications that the Zambian football association could face the hammer came via a letter by FIFA Member Associations Officer, Kenny Jean-Marie, addressed to FAZ that the world football’s governing body had “taken interest” in the arrests of the football officials.

In the letter, Jean-Marie requested for copies of any documents received in relation to the accusations and also directed FAZ to hold its scheduled AGM despite an injunction brought by a suspended club owner which accused Kamanga of changing the association’s constitution without following due procedure, being filed in Zambia’s high court to stop it taking place.

The letter also warned that failure to hold the AGM would provide possible grounds for suspension.

Part of the letter reads:

“The order of the High Court of Zambia dated 24 April, 2024, appears to clearly amount to undue influence by third parties which could be considered as a violation of Article 19 paragraph 1 of the Fifa Statutes and Article 7 paragraph 1.g. of the CAF Statutes.

“For the avoidance of doubt, please note that the infringement of the aforementioned provisions of the FIFA and CAF Statutes may give rise to grounds for the suspension of FAZ irrespective of whether the infringement was attributed to FAZ or not.

“We would like to remind you that a suspended member association may not exercise any of its membership rights.

“The representative teams as well as the affiliated clubs of this federation can no longer take part in international competitions until the suspension has been lifted. In view of the foregoing, FAZ is directed to conduct its Annual General Meeting.”

However, a ruling by a judge upheld the injunction on and scheduled another hearing for Thursday, meaning the AGM was not allowed to take place which has placed the participation of the women’s team in the forthcoming Olympics in jeopardy.

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