Same old Afcon struggles for East, Southern Africa

With South Africa and Zambia making the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) finals’ cut, Southern Africa has barely met its self-prescribed quota, whereas the absence of East Africa representation is a fresh harsh reality.

So, going to Equatorial Guinea next January for the final, West and North Africa will have a lion’s share of representation, thereby increasing their players’ marketability and enhancing prospects of teams from this domain producing the eventual champion.SA

Senegal, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Cameroun, Gabon, Burkina Faso and Guinea represent West Africa, the North has contributed Algeria, Tunisia and Cape Verde with Congo and the Democratic Republic of Congo representing the Central Africa.

From Southern Africa, only Zambia and South Africa have won Afcon, whereas East Africa is yet to win it.

That none from the East made the final cut should not be very startling as the region— reputed for world class athletes—did not have the sufficient numbers in the Afcon final qualifying round stage as only three teams, including Sudan, reached this stage.

On the other hand, Southern Africa or the Council of Southern Africa Football Associations (Cosafa) had seven representatives including Mozambique, Botswana Lesotho, Angola and Malawi who came so close, but ended up drawing 0-0 in Ethiopia on Wednesday to enable Mali make it to Equatorial Guinea from Group B.

The Chipolopolo of Zambia hold the Cosafa distinction of winning the 2012 edition even though they have never hosted Afcon, whereas South Africa’s 1996 feat was achieved on home soil.

At next year’s Afcon finals, Cosafa representation drops from three to two as Angola who made the cut for the 2013 edition are absent, whereas Cecafa football block was in the previous edition represented by Ethiopia.

There are many reasons why the East and the South cannot simply get enough Afcon bite.

Adel Amrouche, Belgian coach of Algeria descent, has coached in East Africa for too long a time to, on a long telephone line from French where he was a TV pundit, give an insight as to why the economic and athletics’ power house cannot translate on the football front.

Amrouche, who coached Burundi and Kenya national teams, faults football associations of East Africa for politicking and lacking vision leading to slow growth of leagues in this region. He says the region’s struggles are also evident in CAF club competitions.

“The management of our federations do not have the vision and conscious to build from domestic leagues. There are no structures. We Zambiachange coaches a lot. We have no stability and there is no belief in local players who should be the basic of a team,” he explained.

Malawian midfielder Raquub Lulu Milanzi, who until mid this year, played at Tusker FC in Kenya and previously Caps United and Civo United in Zimbabwe and Malawi respectively, and seems to agree with Amrouche’s observation.

“In Southern Africa the biggest problem is our grassroots. South Africa and Zambia are benefiting from that as they use mostly local players; their league standards are better. In East Africa, countries like Uganda, Tanzania and Burundi look up to the Kenyan league as the best, yet teams there are not that good. The league us growing but there are too many loopholes,” Milanzi explained.

Stanley Tshosane is credited for being the first coach to qualify the Zebras of Botswana for 2012 Afcon and his experienced of travelling across the continent has taught him as to why West and North Africa teams dominate Afcon.

“Our FA’s are not doing enough with the development structures. If you want to have a good senior national team, you must start from the youth. But in our countries, most Premier League teams do not have developmental teams. Coaches also complain about lack of infrastructure, but we must improvise,” Tshosane noted.

With state of affairs, it seems the only surest way these two regions can have more representations at the panorama of Africa football is through winning the bid to host it.

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