‘So much disrespect’: outrage grows over postponement of Women’s Africa Cup of Nations
Players and coaches demand more accountability from Caf after latest decision further disrupts preparation schedule
On 13 February, Patrice Motsepe, the president of the Confederation of African Football (Caf), promised that this year’s Women’s Africa Cup of Nations (Wafcon), scheduled to be played in Morocco between 17 March and 4 April, would go ahead as planned. One of the reasons he had to make that statement was the 2024 tournament had been postponed for a remarkable 19 months, until July 2025.
That supposedly solemn presidential promise was broken on 5 March, 12 days before the start of the tournament, with many of the teams – including Nigeria, the defending champions, Cameroon and Ghana – playing friendlies across Africa and Asia to prepare for the showpiece, which also determines which teams get to represent the continent at next year’s World Cup.
“After discussions between Caf and its partners, Fifa and other stakeholders, Caf decided to reschedule the dates of the Wafcon 2026, to 25 July–16 August 2026; to ensure the success of this important women’s competition, in the light of certain unforeseen circumstances,” Caf said in its statement. The Guardian asked Luxolo September, the Caf head of communications, to clarify what those unforeseen circumstances were, but received no reply.
The recurring uncertainty about Wafcon, which has been continually disrupted since 2020, has enraged African women’s football. “It’s not really fair,” Desiree Ellis, South Africa’s coach, told the South African Broadcasting Corporation as rumours were circulating that the tournament would once again be postponed. “I’m just going to raise a question with this Wafcon: would this be happening with the men’s game?”
Ellis’s frustration is shared by an executive committee member of the Nigeria Football Federation, who did not want to be named. “It is a huge shame that the women’s game is treated with so much levity on the continent,” they said. “How can Caf repeatedly treat the Wafcon so shabbily, with so much disrespect towards the players?
“Before the postponement, we played two friendly games against Cameroon in Yaoundé to prepare. This was to help our buildup to the tournament. All that is squandered now. We have to start all over again.” As Nigeria’s Rinsola Babajide, who plays for Roma, bluntly put it on a social media post: “It’s actually embarrassing at this point.”
It was a double blow for Ghana’s Black Queens, who were in the United Arab Emirates for the four-nation Pink Ladies Cup and got caught up in the Middle East war, an experience Kim Björkgren, the team’s Swedish coach, described as “frightening”.
“The whole situation [with the conflict] has been difficult to handle. The days have been moving in the wrong direction,” he told Moving the Goalposts from Dubai, before they left the country. “It affected our players in different kinds of ways. Some people are stressed, some people are more relaxed, some struggle to sleep and some people can. Sometimes, you hear the bombs during the night.
“We are very disappointed [about the postponement of the Wafcon]. We had been planning for it for a long time.”
It is not only players and coaching staff who have been affected. Many journalists had made plans to cover the tournament too. Firdose Moonda, a Guardian contributor, was to travel from Kolkata in India to Morocco, with her return home to South Africa being the final leg of her journey. Moonda has now had to buy a new ticket to return home. “Flight prices are more than double at the moment … I’m so frustrated with this … Caf should carry this cost,” she says.
Gayton McKenzie, South Africa’s sports minister, agrees with Moonda. “Caf should strongly consider booking flights for all journalists that can prove that they lost money, [as the] media is going through a very rough period currently, financially. This will just be the right thing to do.”
McKenzie also suggested that the hosts have been playing politics with the staging of Wafcon and that the hosting crisis was deliberately caused to embarrass Motsepe because of Morocco’s loss to Senegal in the final of the men’s Afcon in January. He said that South Africa was prepared to host the tournament should Morocco abandon the responsibility.
The Moroccan football federation, the host association of Wafcon, declined to comment on why it was unable to honour its commitment to Caf and whether the rescheduled tournament in July would, in fact, take place in the north African country.
Mid-level Caf staff charged with Wafcon preparations have also had to abruptly stop what they were doing. One official in Cairo, who wished to remain anonymous, said: “We expect members of the executive committee to hold the top people in administration to account. Bestine Kazadi Ditabala [of DR Congo, Caf’s fourth vice-president] is the head of the women’s football committee. We would like to hear her voice on this postponement.”
With the rescheduled Wafcon to begin six days after the men’s World Cup final on 19 July, and during the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, taking place from 23 July to 2 August, it would be a tall order for it to receive the global attention it deserves.
It is a pathetic situation that Motsepe, as well as key Caf staff, such as Véron Mosengo-Omba, the general secretary, must take full responsibility for, as governance incompetence has brought about this miserable state of affairs.
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