{"id":21458,"date":"2025-12-21T14:36:17","date_gmt":"2025-12-21T12:36:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jhb-webdevelopers\/channelafrica\/news\/african-teams-strengthening-their-chances-with-europe-born-players\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T16:32:31","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T14:32:31","slug":"african-teams-strengthening-their-chances-with-europe-born-players","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/african-teams-strengthening-their-chances-with-europe-born-players\/","title":{"rendered":"African teams strengthening their chances with Europe-born players"},"content":{"rendered":"<div data-testid=\"paragraph-5\">\n<div class=\"text-module__text__0GDob text-module__dark-grey__UFC18 text-module__regular__qJJtA text-module__small__sph8i body-module__full_width__kCIGb body-module__small_body__gOmDf article-body-module__paragraph__Ts-yF\" data-testid=\"paragraph-8\">\n<p>Almost 30% of the players competing at this year\u2019s Africa Cup of Nations in Morocco were born outside the continent, reflecting the growing reliance many African countries have on players from the diaspora in Europe.<\/p>\n<p>Tiny Comoros, who kick off the tournament against Morocco in Rabat on Sunday, have all but one of their 26-man squad born in Europe while the home nation are one of five countries with the majority of their squad born outside the continent.<\/p>\n<p>Algeria, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Equatorial Guinea are the others with a heavy reliance on players born and raised in Europe to migrant families. Half of the Senegal squad, too, were born in Europe.<\/p>\n<p>In total, of the 664 players across the 24 teams at the tournament, 191 were born in Europe, representing 28.8%.<\/p>\n<p>Morocco have players born in Belgium, France, the Netherlands and Spain, indicative of diverse communities across Europe, while Algeria\u2019s 16 foreign-born players come mainly from France but they also have a player born in Belgium as well as in Germany and Netherlands.<\/p>\n<p>Both countries have a strong scouting system across Europe, actively seeking players to add to their senior side plus their junior teams.<\/p>\n<p>Equatorial Guinea&#8217;s 28-man squad have 19 players all born in the former colonial power Spain.<\/p>\n<p>The footballing fortunes of the small central African nation have improved drastically since they began to look for players in Spain with a connection to the country. This is their fifth Cup of Nations finals appearance in the last eight editions.<\/p>\n<p>Comoros are competing in their second tournament, dipping heavily into the large community based in Marseille, while the Congolese have filled the vast majority of their squad with players from their migrant population in Belgium and France.<\/p>\n<p>Players born in Britain, Italy, Norway, Portugal, Switzerland and Sweden are also competing at the tournament, while Morocco\u2019s goalkeeper Yassine Bounou was born in Canada and the Sudan striker Amar Taifour in the US.<\/p>\n<p>African countries have benefitted from a change in the FIFA rules on international eligibility some 20 years ago that allowed players who had represented one country at junior level to switch allegiance if they had dual nationality.<\/p>\n<p>A later change to the eligibility rules allowed players with senior caps in non-competitive internationals to change, like Wilfried Zaha, who won two caps for England but is competing for the Ivory Coast at the Cup of Nations in Morocco.<\/p>\n<p>Botswana, Egypt and South Africa are the only countries whose players at the tournament are all home-born.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>&#8211;Reuters&#8211;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":14987,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[20],"class_list":["post-21458","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-sport","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Botswana, Egypt and SA are the only countries whose players at the tournament are all home-born.","published_date":null,"news_description":"Botswana, Egypt and SA are the only countries whose players at the tournament are all home-born.","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/21458","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/21458\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25119,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/21458\/revisions\/25119"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14987"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=21458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}