Eritrea withdrew from 2026 World Cup qualifying ‘over fears players will flee’
Eritrea’s football federation withdrew its men’s team from 2026 World Cup qualifying owing to fears that players would attempt to seek political asylum during trips abroad, according to sources close to the squad.
A joint statement from Fifa and the Confederation of African Football (Caf) on Friday said that “all of Eritrea’s matches have been cancelled”, a few days before they had been due to travel to face Morocco in their first fixture, but provided no explanation.
The Eritrean National Football Federation (ENFF) has yet to comment but it is understood that domestic-based players had been preparing for the opening two games of their qualifying campaign for three months before being informed at the end of October that they would not be taking part. Some ENFF members are believed to have attempted to convince the ministry of sport and culture to give the team the go-ahead to play but it was refused by Zemede Tekle, the commissioner for sports and culture commissioner, who supervises the federation.
According to several sources close to the squad, the main reason is to prevent players from taking advantage of the national team’s overseas fixtures to escape and request political asylum from the oppressive regime of the Eritrean president, Isaias Afwerki, which imposes lifetime military service on many subjects.
“This is heartbreaking,” one source said. “They are killing Eritrean football. It’s not easy for the players to ask for an explanation. They may send you to jail for protesting. You can just wait and see what they decide.”
The Guardian contacted the ENFF president, Paulos Weldehaymanot, but he did not respond to a request for comment.
Since 2009 it is estimated that more than 60 players have used their status as internationals to seek asylum, with the most recent case involving five female players who fled hours before their game against the hosts Uganda in the Council for East and Central Africa Football Associations (Cecafa) Women’s Under-20 Championship in November 2021.
Seven male players – Abel Okbay Kilo, Eyoba Girmay, Yosief Mebrahtu, Filmon Serere, Robel Kidane, Abraham and Ismail Jahar – went missing in Uganda after helping Eritrea to reach the Cecafa Cup final for the first time in December 2019 and remain in hiding. Four under-20 internationals – Hanibal
Tekle, Mewael Yosief, Simon Asmelash and Hermon Yohannes – fled after Eritrea’s 5-0 win against Zanzibar in the quarter-finals of the Under-20 Cecafa Cup in Uganda in October 2019.
Eritrea – who had been due to face Morocco, Zambia, Congo, Tanzania and Niger in World Cup qualifying – have not played since a friendly against Sudan in January 2020 and their most recent competitive game was a 2022 World Cup qualifier in September 2019. They no longer have a Fifa ranking having not played a match in the past 48 months, with all fixtures having to take place away from home owing to the lack of a stadium in Eritrea that meets Caf requirements to host international matches.
“The problem for Eritrean government officials is that they have to play 10 games abroad,” said Daniel Solomon, the founder of the Eritrean Football website, who had planned his trip to Morocco. “It’s not a single round-trip match like in the preliminary rounds. It’s too much to handle for them. I booked a ticket for nothing. Eritrean fans have to wait another few years again for competitive football thanks to the mismanagement of Eritrea’s regime.”
Solomon says that Eritrea have some talented players, with Ali Sulieman Salih and Robel Teclemichael Bahta playing in Ethiopia’s first division. It has been unusual to see Eritrean footballers playing abroad, albeit in neighbouring Ethiopia, because the Afwerki regime does not easily grant the possibility of leaving the country.
“Teclemichael had offers from China, but due to Covid-19 nothing happened,” Solomon says. “If Eritrea were playing the 2030 World Cup qualifiers, these players would be 27. They are wasting their golden years, the opportunity to be seen on the international stage and be purchased by other clubs. Our neighbours Yemen and Somalia, which are experiencing conflicts in their countries, managed to have a team and play. Why can’t we do the same?”
placed Eljif Elmas shortly before the hour mark, with the scores still level at 0-0, and went on to enjoy two of the best chances of the game.
The first arrived in the 79th minute, when he froze a defender with a trademark shift of weight from right foot to left, making space to fire in at the near post. He went across goal with his next shot, from a similar position, in the 89th, but both times was denied by excellent saves from the goalkeeper Etrit Berisha.
All that was left was for Empoli to punish Napoli with an injury-time goal from one of their own substitutes, Viktor Kovalenko. To call this an upset might be understating it. Empoli began the weekend 19th in the table, having scored just four goals and conceded 21 in their opening 11 games.
At the same time, though, was it really a surprise? Napoli are the reigning champions and remain in the top four even after this defeat, yet they had been fortunate to draw four days earlier at home to a Union Berlin team that arrived on a 12-match losing streak. Garcia’s team have been inexcusably fragile at their own stadium, winning just two out of eight across all competitions.
Succeeding Spalletti was always going to be a tough task, but three months into this season we can say that things have not been trending in a good direction under Garcia. Although he initially preserved his predecessor’s 4-3-3, Napoli lost the fluidity that made it work.
Spalletti encouraged his players to trust their instincts and flow into the spaces that opponents left to them rather than sticking to any rigid formation. Garcia’s Napoli have lacked the confidence to take those decisions, burdened either by too many new instructions or too few.
Worse, the team’s leaders often appeared to be at odds with him. Kvaratskhelia made an exasperated gesture after being subbed off in the 89th minute of a draw with Genoa. Osimhen gave an even more direct show of dissent when he was withdrawn late in a 0-0 with Bologna one week later, raising two fingers and protesting that Napoli ought to be chasing a goal with a pair of strikers up top.
It is easy to point out things that aren’t working, however, and harder to identify a replacement manager willing and able to fix them. De Laurentiis is reported to have contacted Antonio Conte about replacing Garcia last month, but the former Serie A and Premier League winner was not interested in taking over someone else’s broken project.
Several leading Italian media outlets named Igor Tudor as the frontrunner on Monday. De Laurentiis is said to be seeking a traghettatore –a ferryman who can steady the ship and steer Napoli safely to a top-four finish, giving the club time to reflect and make more permanent decisions at the end of the season.
Tudor, who has coached in Italy, Croatia, Greece, Turkey and France, comes with the added advantage of having worked with Simeone at Verona – helping the striker to produce the most prolific season of his career in 2021-22. Other candidates have also been suggested, including the former Napoli centre-back Fabio Cannavaro, who was sitting with De Laurentiis in the stands on Sunday.
The unanswered question in all this is whether a change of manager will address the cause of Napoli’s problems or simply the symptoms. Garcia has made questionable choices but also been undermined by leadership. De Laurentiis was reported to have gone into his changing room at half-time on Sunday to speak to the players directly.
Spalletti was not the only one to leave Napoli after their title win. Cristiano Giuntoli, the sporting director who signed Kvaratskhelia and Osimhen, departed for Juventus. Francesco Sinatti, the club’s athletic trainer, also quit before taking up a position with the Italian national team. Their simultaneous exits left a leadership vacuum, with fewer voices who can challenge De Laurentiis.
Garcia boarded an EasyJet flight to Nice on Monday, flying to spend time with his family at the start of this international break, and plenty of supporters would be happy for him not to come back. The older ones will remember, though, how fleeting success can be. When Napoli last won the league title, back in 1990, they followed up a year later by finishing eighth.