He didn’t mince his words. In an interview granted to the Wall Street Italia media, the Neapolitan president, Aurelio De Laurentiis, spoke about the recruitment of African international players. “Don’t talk to me about African players anymore. I love them, but if they sign with us in the future, they should give up playing the African Cup of Nations. We find ourselves like idiots paying salaries to send them around the world to play for others, ”he was annoyed.
“I won’t take any more, as long as the CAN will be organized in the middle of the season. Unless they give up arguing about it,” he said. The competition takes place regularly in January and February, in the middle of the championship. This is the case for the next edition, scheduled for January 2024 in Côte d’Ivoire.
3 internationals involved in the team
Today, Napoli has 3 internationals playing for African selections: André-Frank Zambo Angissa, a regular in the Cameroonian selection, Adam Ounas, Algerian international, and of course the star of the team, the Nigerian Victor Osimhen. The young Franco-Algerian Karim Zedadka, meanwhile, recently announced that he would choose Algerian sports nationality. He hopes to be selected in the years to come.
In Ligue 1, several players gave up participating in the last CAN at the start of the year. The Niçois Andy Delort had chosen to favor his new club rather than return to the selection. In Saint-Étienne, which was looking to stay in the first division, Zaydou Youssouf and Mahdi Camara had chosen to focus on the maintenance operation, rather than participating in the CAN.