Football: Expatriate Congolese players shun the national team

Ten months after their last home appearance, a 0-1 defeat to Uganda in qualifying for the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations, Congo will play again. The small event will take place on September 5 at the Alphonse-Massemba-Débat stadium in Brazzaville, against Tanzania, in the 2026 World Cup qualifiers, a competition in which the Red Devils, bottom of their group with five defeats (including three by forfeit), already have no chance of participating.

But the match's holding was long in doubt due to a lack of a squad. Following the dismissal of interim coach Isaac Ngata, Italian Fabrizio Cesana, who had previously been in charge of the under-17 national team, was belatedly tasked with compiling a squad to face the Taifa Stars. But he received a rejection from almost all of the players playing abroad, particularly in Europe, forcing the Italian coach to rely heavily on local players.

This refusal to travel to Brazzaville was taken following a consultation led by the Congolese internationals, angered by working conditions that they consider unsuitable for a national team. "The match was made official late, the call-ups arrived on August 29 when they should have been sent by August 25. We cannot put ourselves in difficulty with our clubs, while we have been denouncing for years the recurring problems concerning the organization of the selection," explains Fred Dembi, under contract with Hassania d'Agadir (Morocco).

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