{"id":53258,"date":"2025-11-30T18:22:22","date_gmt":"2025-11-30T18:22:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/eritrea\/all-news\/african-cup-of-nations-deserves-equal-respect"},"modified":"2025-11-30T19:15:42","modified_gmt":"2025-11-30T19:15:42","slug":"african-cup-of-nations-deserves-equal-respect","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/eritrea\/all-news\/african-cup-of-nations-deserves-equal-respect","title":{"rendered":"African Cup of Nations Deserves Equal Respect"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600\"><strong>Africa-Press &#8211; Eritrea. <\/strong><\/span><b>Former England international Eni Aluko, who was born in Nigeria, believes the Africa Cup of Nations should be given the same respect as tournaments such as the World Cup and European Championships.<\/b><\/p>\n<p>Speaking on Friday at the London leg of a Diaspora Tour promoting next month\u2019s AFCON tournament in Morocco, the former Chelsea and Juventus forward said it was time to stop seeking \u201cvalidation&#8221; from critical voices in Europe.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I think there&#8217;s sometimes people who just choose to not respect what African football is about and you leave them in their ignorance to do that, right?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Aluko said African football was happening \u201cwhether you like it or not\u201d and was growing rapidly with a huge audience in the diaspora.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSome of the players are the biggest players in the Premier League and around the world. So if you don&#8217;t want to watch it, that&#8217;s up to you, but you&#8217;re missing out,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>This year\u2019s AFCON clashes with a busy period in the English Premier League and the penultimate matchday of the UEFA Champions League group phase.<\/p>\n<p>But Samson Adamu, the Confederation of African Football\u2019s director of tournaments said he does not doubt that African stars will play for their countries.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere is always very good collaboration, our president is very well aware of these issues,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>He added that CAF president, Patrice Motsepe, always engages in \u201cinclusive discussions with all of the different stakeholders\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo it&#8217;s assured that it&#8217;s going to be the best AFCON and the best African stars will be there, so there&#8217;s absolutely nothing to worry about,&#8221; Adamu said.<\/p>\n<p>The Diaspora Tour concludes in Paris on the third and fourth of December.<\/p>\n<p>AFCON hosts, Morocco, will face Comoros in the opening match on 21 December in Rabat\u2019s recently completed 69,500-capacity Prince Moulay Abdellah Stadium.<\/p>\n<p>The final takes place on 18 January.<\/p>\n<p><strong>For More News And Analysis About <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">Eritrea<\/span> Follow <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">Africa-Press<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; Eritrea. Former England international Eni Aluko, who was born in Nigeria, believes the Africa Cup of Nations should be given the same respect as tournaments such as the World Cup and European Championships. Speaking on Friday at the London leg of a Diaspora Tour promoting next month\u2019s AFCON tournament in Morocco, the former [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":53256,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,17],"tags":[297,263,233,566,245],"class_list":["post-53258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-sport","tag-afcon","tag-african-football","tag-eritrea","tag-footballer","tag-morocco"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>African Cup of Nations Deserves Equal Respect - Eritrea<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Former England international Eni Aluko, who was born in Nigeria, believes the Africa Cup of Nations should be given t ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/eritrea\/all-news\/african-cup-of-nations-deserves-equal-respect\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"African Cup of Nations Deserves Equal Respect\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Former England international Eni Aluko, who was born in Nigeria, believes the Africa Cup of Nations should be given t ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/eritrea\/all-news\/african-cup-of-nations-deserves-equal-respect\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Eritrea\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-11-30T18:22:22+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-11-30T19:15:42+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/eritrea\/sites\/27\/2025\/11\/sm_1764517446.684542.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1024\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"538\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/eritrea\/all-news\/african-cup-of-nations-deserves-equal-respect#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/eritrea\/all-news\/african-cup-of-nations-deserves-equal-respect\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/eritrea\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"African Cup of Nations Deserves Equal Respect\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-11-30T18:22:22+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-11-30T19:15:42+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/eritrea\/all-news\/african-cup-of-nations-deserves-equal-respect\"},\"wordCount\":334,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/eritrea\/all-news\/african-cup-of-nations-deserves-equal-respect#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/eritrea\/sites\/27\/2025\/11\/sm_1764517446.684542.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"AFCON\",\"African Football\",\"Eritrea\",\"footballer\",\"Morocco\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"sport\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/eritrea\/all-news\/african-cup-of-nations-deserves-equal-respect#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/eritrea\/all-news\/african-cup-of-nations-deserves-equal-respect\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/eritrea\/all-news\/african-cup-of-nations-deserves-equal-respect\",\"name\":\"African Cup of Nations Deserves Equal Respect - 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