The contest will be held between January 9 and February 6 in Cameroon, a country where French researchers detected a new variant of the coronavirus.
The 2021 Africa Cup of Nations (CAN 2021) will be held in Cameroon between January 9 and February 6, 2022, after being postponed last year by the COVID-19 pandemic, but is already suffering the ravages of the coronavirus with dozens of footballers who have tested positive in virus detection tests.
The tournament, the most important of teams on the African continent, It will be played in the middle of the new wave of COVID-19, associated with the rise of the variant omicron, and there are already several teams that have announced cases among their members after taking the tests to travel and participate.
The selection most affected is the Gambia, which, with more than half of its players (16 out of 28) unavailable, had to cancel on January 1 two friendly matches scheduled before CAN 2021 (which maintains the name despite being held in 2022).
His coach, Belgian Tom Saintfiet, recently indicated that not all of these casualties were caused by COVID-19 and that there were also other illnesses, injuries and travel restrictions.
Saintfiet called this situation a possible “catastrophe”, since the African Confederation of Soccer (CAF) rejected the request of Gambia to be able to replace several players of the Scorpions, as the national team is known.
For the celebration of this tournament, the CAF authorized the participating teams to increase the number of players to 28, instead of the usual 23, due to the pandemic and possible losses due to positives.
Too Ivory Coast had to cancel a friendly match against Comoros on January 3, after several cases of COVID-19 were registered in the Ivorian national team.
“I have players who have tested positive. At least eight or nine cases”Declared Elephants coach, Frenchman Patrice Beaumelle.
The General Manager of the Comoros team, El-Hadad Himidi, also confirmed COVID-19 cases.
Similarly, in the selection of Cameroon confirmed COVID-19 in four players ten days before the start of the championship.
The Lions of Senegal announced at least three cases and among the Panthers of Gabon there are two infected footballers.
The list of affected computers does not end there. Too Malawi, Algeria, Cape Verde, Tunisia and Nigeria have confirmed COVID-19 infections on their teams.
In addition, although at the moment it is not a cause for alarm, the celebration of this CAN coincides with the announcement on day 4 of the identification by French investigators of a new variant of the virus called B.1.640.2, the first cases of which had been detected in the Republic of the Congo last September, and whose patient zero is a traveler who was returning from Cameroon, where the competition is organized.
Despite all the difficulties, the coronavirus does not prevent the African teams from continuing to prepare the thirty-third edition of the CAN, which in its last edition of 2019 won Algeria in a close match against Senegal. (D)
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