{"id":29643,"date":"2026-03-23T14:36:30","date_gmt":"2026-03-23T12:36:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=29643"},"modified":"2026-03-23T14:37:48","modified_gmt":"2026-03-23T12:37:48","slug":"ivory-coasts-pepe-gets-belated-chance-for-world-cup-audition","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/ivory-coasts-pepe-gets-belated-chance-for-world-cup-audition\/","title":{"rendered":"Ivory Coast&#8217;s Pepe gets belated chance for World Cup audition"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Ivory Coast striker Nicolas Pepe has won a recall to the national squad after \u200binjury ruled out teenage striker Yann \u200cDiomande from this month\u2019s World Cup warm-up matches.<br \/>\nPepe had been left out of the initial squad \u200bfor friendlies against South Korea in \u200bMilton Keynes, England on Saturday and Scotland \u2060in Liverpool on March 31.<\/p>\n<p>The 30-year-old \u200bwas also omitted from the Africa Cup of \u200bNations tournament in Morocco at the turn of the year where the Ivorians were defending their title \u200bbut were eliminated at the quarter-final \u200bstage.<\/p>\n<p>The French-born former Arsenal striker, who has scored five \u200cLaLiga \u2060goals for Villarreal this season, won the last of his 50 caps for the Elephants in October but sparked controversy soon \u200bafter for comments \u200bmade \u2060in a YouTube video about Morocco\u2019s poor record at the Cup \u200bof Nations.<\/p>\n<p>He apologised but said he \u200bhad \u2060been subjected to racial abuse online and accused the Ivorian federation of not supporting \u2060him.<\/p>\n<p>Ivory Coast \u200bare in World Cup \u200bGroup E with Ecuador, Germany and Curacao.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;Reuters&#8211;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":29645,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[20],"class_list":["post-29643","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-sport","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Ivory Coast \u200bare in World Cup \u200bGroup E with Ecuador, Germany and Curacao.","published_date":"","news_description":"Ivory Coast \u200bare in World Cup \u200bGroup E with Ecuador, Germany and Curacao.","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/29643","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\/29643\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29644,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/29643\/revisions\/29644"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29645"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=29643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}