Chad disqualified from UNIFFAC U17 AFCON qualifiers

The Under 17 National team of Chad has been disqualified from the UNIFFAC Zone U17 AFCON qualifiers, scheduled to kick off in Limbe Cameroon on Thursday January 12.

News of Chad’s disqualification came as a bombshell late at night on the eve of Chad’s opening game against Congo Brazzaville, with CAF informing them that most of their players have been disqualified by the MRI test.

The Normalization Committee running the Chadian Football Federation through its vice president of Abakar Nair, has written a letter to CAF contesting the decision.

In the letter, Abakar Nair stated that they only received notification at 10:23 pm on Wednesday January 11, 2022, from CAF’s doctor Sidiki, informing them about their disqualification.

“Following an email received from the CAF Doctor, in this case Doctor Sidiki at 10 p.m. 23 mins today, January 11, 2023 and on the eve of our match, disqualifying our U 17 National team, I would hereby like to challenge the decision suspending our player named Ousmane Diallo,” Abakar Nair wrote.

“In our efforts to encourage our youth football, we provide
colossal efforts to participate in the Qualifying Tournament of the zone. It is also important to recall that we do not have MRI medical structures in Chad, so we are obliged to travel to perform the MRI test,” he added.

“For this case, on the recommendation of the Executive Director of UNIFFAC Martin Etongue, we sent our players to the Douala Imaging Center, renowned to be the best for the year 2022 in Cameroon for a pre-MRI on 4, 5 and 6
January 2023. This pre-test failed 8 out of our 25 players and Ousmane Diallo’s result was classified
stage 4, therefore making him eligible.

“What is paradoxical in this situation is that, the UNIFFAC had organized today (January 11) the
technical meeting of the match led by Emmanuel Kandé at which the representatives
of both countries took part. Everything was ready for the game between Chad and Congo to be played on January 12 at 2 p.m. Unfortunately, CAF announces a disqualification at 10:23 p.m. very difficult thing to digest. By putting yourself in our place, it will be difficult for you to accept this decision.

“In addition, faced with such situations, we wonder about our future participations at this competition. It is also deplorable to note that of the 8 countries composing the UNIFFAC zone, only three will play a tournament for 2 qualifying places,” Abakar Nair concluded.

CAF is yet make a statement on the recent development, as the UNIFFAC Zone U17 AFCON qualifiers are expected to kick-off in Limbe this Thursday.

With Chad disqualified, it now means just three countries, Cameroon, The Central African Republic and Congo Brazzaville, will take part in the competition, to fight for the two qualification tickets for the 2023 U17 AFCON schedule for Algeria.

Already, the Democratic Republic of Congo were forced to pull out of the qualifying tournament after 25 out of their 40 players failed MRI testing.

21 out of Cameroon’s 30 players were also declared ineligible, before coach Jean Pierre Fiala Fiala summoned a new set of players for the competition.

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