Dan Kweku Yeboah Slams CAF For ‘Populist’ Afcon Decision

Ace sports journalist Dan Kwaku Yeboah has described decision by the Confederation of Africa Football (CAF) to move the African Cup of Nations from January to June as simply a "populist decision" to please the western world.

Dan Kwaku Yeboah, Monday night on Football 360 questioned why Africans always seem to make decisions that often suggest that they are inferior to their western counterparts.

He told host Nutifafa Attah: “I don’t understand why Africans will always want to make the western world feel that they are superior to us. We have our talent and you are tapping our talents to develop your league and you want to dictate to us when we should organize our competition. The decision they took is just a populist decision.”

Dan Yeboah also criticized new CAF President, Ahmad Ahmad, for focusing on what he deemed “secondary” issues instead of re-branding the Afcon competition which is a major priority.

“The first thing Ahmad and his people should have done was to rebrand the Afcon because, we are competing with the western world. When they organize Euro and participation fee alone is for qualifying is €8 million, you get into the tournament and a win is €1 million and a draw is €500,000.”

“Africa is the biggest continent in the world and we play our flagship competition and the winner takes home less than 2 million.”

“You don’t tackle this issue you are rather talking about dates, I think that was secondary. This is just a populace idea.”

The argument that a change of date will help foreign based players play for their national teams is unsustainable according Mr. Yeboah.

“Over the years all the best players have been part of the Afcon. Those players who have been missing the Afcon are average players,” he argued.

That change of Afcon date has been met with mixed reactions as some think it will be a huge burden for host Nations while others feel it will evoke some form of competition.

Gideon Sarpong | sportsxtra.com.gh