CAF Wants New World Cup Qualification Format For Africa

A New system for the qualification of African teams to the World Cup will feature on the agenda of the Congress of the Confederation of African Football (CAF) scheduled for January next year in Bamako, Mali.

CAF President Issa Hayatou told PANA on Wednesday in Yaounde that the CAF Executive Bureau plans to discuss with the five leading African teams at CAF 2006, which Egypt, Libya, Algeria and Gabon are bidding to host, should automatically become Africa's five World Cup representatives in 2006 in Germany.

The proposal will be submitted to the CAF Congress that will be held in Bamako, a few days before the opening of the 23rd edition of the continental soccer fiesta.

"We have noted that professional players are being relied on too much on the occasion of the various competitions their countries are involved in, and this creates problems with their professional clubs," Issa Hayatou said.

"For the time being, there are 12 or so rounds for CAF qualifying matches. The same goes for the World Cup. Thus, the clubs which employ our players have to let them go and play for their national teams at least 24 times every other year," Hayatou said.

"A solution has got to be found to protect our players and the national football associations. This is why we take the view that the two events must be federated so that CAN serves as the qualifying tournament to the World Cup."

If the proposed formula is adopted by the congress, only the 16 teams, at the end of the qualifying matches involving the 52 CAF member countries, will be concerned.

The two CAN finalists will automatically qualify, as well as the two other semi-finalists, Hayatou noted, while indicating that CAF will find another formula to determine the fifth team.

He said that if the current system continued, there would be two problems. "Either European clubs recruit our players and refuse to let them go, which is not good for our national teams, or they refuse to recruit African footballers, which is not good either, for the promotion of the continent's footballers."

"You cannot ask a club official to pay or bear with players who spend three quarters of their time playing for their countries," he noted, "considering that one has got to be realistic and anticipate events".

According to him, European clubs are close to rebelling against letting their players go, even FIFA and other associations are looking for ways and means of ensuring that all the parties concerned are equally protected.