African Nations Championship games over Christmas: Will Premier League stars be missing the festive period?
The African Nations Championship (ANC) qualification is running between October 25 and December 29.
The ANC is a biannual African football tournament organized by the Confederation of African Football (CAF) that was established in 2009.
With many African stars playing in the Premier League, such as Mohammed Salah, Andre Onana, Bryan Mbeumo and Nicolas Jackson, fans may be worried that African stars will miss games over the festive period.
African players will not miss the festive period
Mohamed Salah (Image credit: Getty Images)Luckily for the fans of clubs like Liverpool and Brentford, whose star players come from Africa, these players will not miss the festive period for international duty.
That is because the rules of the competition state that âthe participating nations must consist of players playing in their national league competitions.â
Olympiacos celebrate with the Europa Conference League (Image credit: Alamy)This means that only players who play domestically in a league in the nation they represent are eligible to play in this tournament.
This yearâs tournament will be hosted by three nations â Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda.
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Senegal will be looking to win back-to-back competitions after beating Algeria on penalties in the final of the 2022 competition.
Since it began, the tournamentâs top scorer is Ayoub El Kaabi, who did play for a Moroccan side when he played in the tournament, but now plays for Turkish side Olympiacos.
El Kaabi scored five goals across both legs as Olympiacos knocked Aston Villa out of the Conference League semi-final.
He then went on to score the only goal in the Conference League Final as Olympiacos beat Fiorentina 1â0 to become the first Greek side to win a major European trophy.
