Player disappearances cast cloud over Eritrea future participation
JOHANNESBURG, April 8 : Eritrea’s participation in the Africa Cup of Nations preliminaries is now in question after seven of their footballers disappeared following their victory in Eswatini last month that secured them a spot in the group-stage qualifiers.
The players went missing after Eritrea completed a 4-1 aggregate triumph over Eswatini on March 31.
The episode keeps up a pattern that has characterised their international participation over the last two decades and led to Eritrea infrequently competing in both the World Cup and Cup of Nations qualifiers.
Victory over Eswatini proved a surprise success for the lowly-ranked Eritrea considering they had not played an international match for six years.
It put them into the draw for the group-stage qualifiers, along with the five winners of other preliminary ties. They will join Africa’s 42 top-ranked teams, who will be divided into 12 groups of four teams each.
The group qualifiers are to be played between September and November to determine the teams that will qualify for the 2027 Cup of Nations finals in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda.
Eritrea has been largely closed off to the rest of the world and has been described as a ‘hermit’ country. The Red Sea state, formerly part of Ethiopia, has been ruled by President Isaias Afwerki since independence in 1993, and human rights groups have repeatedly described his government as repressive.
NO TRAVEL
Players and other team members defected after matches or tournaments in Angola in 2007, Kenya in 2009, Tanzania in 2011, Uganda in 2012, Botswana in 2015, following a World Cup qualifier, and Uganda again in 2019.
It is estimated some 80 footballers have defected while playing for the national team abroad, none of them going on to pursue their football careers in exile.
Eritrea did not allow teams to travel outside the country since members of its under-20 side fled to Uganda in 2019 but had a change of heart when they entered the 2027 Cup of Nations.
They were drawn to play against Eswatini in a two-legged knockout round tie and surprised with a 2-0 win in the first leg, which took place in Morocco because Eritrea does not have a stadium that meets the Confederation of African Football’s criteria for hosting international matches.
It was their first Cup of Nations outing in 19 years and they pulled together a squad made up of eight home-based players and 12 from the Eritrean diaspora, including a former Manchester United academy player, Siem Eyob-Abraha, and a teenage goalkeeper who travelled from Australia.
COACH CONFIRMED DISAPPEARANCE OF PLAYERS
Eritrea appointed former Egyptian international Hesham Yakan as coach only a fortnight before the first tie and he was the one who confirmed the disappearance of the players to Reuters on Tuesday.
A further sign of Eritrea looking to emerge from its self-imposed isolation came in February when their football federation president, Paulos Weldehaimanot Andemariam, was elected to head the Council of East and Central African Football Associations, a long-standing regional body that organises club and junior competitions.
But that could all be in the balance now after the embarrassment of the player defections.
Eritrea’s Minister of Information, Yemane Gebremeskel, declined to comment when contacted by Reuters while George Ghebreslassie, an Eritrean exile who runs a non-profit organisation supporting Eritrean refugees, said the disappearance highlighted the dire situation in the country.
“It shows the kind of situation we have in Eritrea. We thought things would change, but nothing has changed," he said.
(Editing by Pritha Sarkar)
