African Cup of Nation Winner Aliou Cisse has challenged Napoli not to recruit African players after a comment from Napoli owner and President Aurelio de Laurentiis on not signing any more African players unless they agree not to play in the biennial tournament.
“A football player can play for 12 teams, say, but will only have one national team,” Cisse told BBC Sport Africa.
“Clubs will never be above our flag and our national teams. And every Senegalese who play in Europe, wherever he will be, if he is competent I will call him to defend the colors of the nation.
“I have a lot of respect for (De Laurentiis) but I challenge them to try to not recruit African players.”
The timing of the Nations Cup – traditionally played in January and February – has led to repeated disputes with European clubs forced to release players in the middle of the season.
Napoli lost defender Kalidou Koulibaly – who captained Senegal to triumph in the 2021 Nations Cup staged this year in Cameroon – and midfielder Andre-Frank Zambo Anguissa to call-ups for the tournament last season and the pair missed six club games.
Why should the debate exist only when it comes to African players?” Cisse added.
“When a Brazilian is needed by his federation, there is no debate. And yet we are five hours away from Europe. In South America, they are 17-18 hours away from Europe – but there is no debate.
“Clubs should discuss and share ideas with these players to find the best solution to help both national teams and clubs.
“We aren’t fighting the clubs. I’ve spent seven years here, I have always tried to have a good collaboration with the clubs.”
Cisse says he experienced a negative attitude towards the Nations Cup when he traveled to one European club to convince a player to represent Senegal.
“I met the coach and the sporting director and then they told me, kindly, extremely politely, ‘Your competition is great but to be honest we don’t care. What we care about is to have this boy at the end of the season because he represents 25 million euros to play in the Champions League,” he said.
“I can understand, I am not shocked at all. But they can understand that when the nation is within its rights, we are allowed to call [up] our players.
“They can believe what they want but they should let us organize things as we want.”