The Africa Cup of Nations for the 2023–24 season might have an effects on Premier League teams, with Liverpool and Arsenal being two of those teams last season.
The next Africa Cup of Nations will now take place in the winter of 2024 due to weather concerns in the Ivory Coast.
Like the most recent AFCON, it will take place in January and February, which means a number of Premier League players may miss some of the season.
The tournament’s postponement until 2024 required consent from the Confederation of African Football (CAF) and other executive boards. CAF President Patrice Motsepe stated in Rabat, the capital of Morocco, that “We cannot take the risk.”
Actually, CAF indicated in 2017 that the typical January-February timeframe will be phased out in the near future in order to help settle disputes with European clubs, who had previously been dissatisfied with having to release their players in the middle of the season.
Despite the fact that Sadio Mane and Mohamed Salah only missed two Premier League games because of the winter break, Liverpool lost both players last season.
Thomas Partey missed one game for Arsenal because he returned after Ghana was eliminated at the group stage, while Mohamed Elneny played for Egypt.
While Tottenham’s new midfielder Yves Bissouma represents Mali, Chelsea’s Hakim Ziyech and Edouard Mendy represented Morocco and Senegal, respectively.
Manchester United has Ivory Coast midfielder Eric Bailly, and Liverpool may lose Salah again now that Mane has joined Bayern Munich. Even though some of the games were played in June, there are still continuing qualifying matches for the following competition.
Salah’s Egypt prevailed against Guinea and lost to Ethiopia in their first two games, while Malawi, the other team in that group, also gained three points.
Algeria, headed by Riyad Mahrez, has had the best qualifying start of any side, going 2-0 while not conceding a goal against Tanzania and Uganda.
Ivory Coast, which contains Premier League players like Wilfried Zaha and Nicolas Pepe, has made a solid start to its qualifying campaign with a 4-1 victory over Patson Daka’s Zambia.
Lesotho, on the other hand, held them to a scoreless draw. They will, however, automatically compete in the competition as hosts.