Al Ahly not happy with EFA & CAF over fixture dates for AFCON

Al Ahly director of football Sayed Abdel-Hafiz voiced his displeasure with the EFA and CAF’s handling of the AFCON and FIFA Club World Cup dates clash.

The FIFA Club World Cup dates overlap with the Africa Cup of Nations, which runs from January 9 to February 6. This proves to be a major issue for the Red Devils, since several of its players, whether Egyptian or internationals like Ali Maaloul (Tunisia), Aliou Dieng (Mali), and Badr Benoun, will be competing in the AFCON (Morocco).

If any of the countries listed advance to the tournament’s knockout rounds, Al Ahly will be without important team players in the FIFA Club World Cup.

Due to the current situation, Al Ahly filed an official appeal to the Egyptian Football Association, requesting that they intervene in order to find a solution for the team.

During a statement to Al Ahly TV, Abdel Hafeez expressed his dissatisfaction with the lack of support Al Ahly has gotten thus far.

“Last year in the FIFA Club’s World Cup in Qatar, the reason behind many fans attending the final is that Al Ahly played the third-place game on the same pitch earlier,” Sayed said.

“I respect the participating clubs, but the tournament will be affected if Al Ahly don’t play in it, we have a huge fanbase in the middle east.

“Now we have a problem and no one has responded to our protests. There was a proposal for the Club World Cup to end on the 13th of February but Chelsea have a game scheduled to take place on the 16th of the same month, so that won’t happen.

“Any change in the Club World Cup games’ dates is rejected because it might affect Chelsea’s schedule, and no one can do that to a European club.

“On the other side, CAF is not even responding to our protests, despite the fact that we could lose 11 key players because of the conflict between the AFCON and Club World Cup.”