CAF replies Napoli President over ‘Racist Statement’

Napoli President, Aurelio De Laurentiis made quite the divisive comment recently regarding the CAF AFCON tournament and African players.

In response to the comments, the Confederation of African Football has come in to slam the Napoli president that African players would have to sign a contract clause not to partake in the AFCON before signing for Napoli.

The aggrieved CAF in their statement slammed the Italian over his quoted comment that said:

“Enough of African players or they should give up playing in the African Cup of Nations. I won’t be buying them anymore for this reason.”.

CAF writing back said:

“CAF is committed to the role that football plays in Africa, Europe, North and South America, Asia and globally of bringing together and uniting people of different cultures, language groups, races, ethnic groups and religious backgrounds.

“By publicly declaring that players who sign for Napoli must sign a waiver denouncing participation in the Africa Cup of Nations as a condition of employment, De Laurentiis’ comments are likely to fall under Article 14 of the UEFA Disciplinary Regulations.

“We do not doubt that Napoli and UEFA are as committed as CAF is to these global humanitarian objectives.

“Are we to assume that the chairman of Napoli is going to include similar restrictive conditions to players from South America, Asia and other Confederations prohibiting them from playing in their continental competitions, which are important for the development and growth of football globally?”

Aurelio De Laurentiis’ comments is one that wouldn’t be taken lightly with by a number of people in the footballing world and so far, the Napoli president has began to receive the backlash from it.

The AFCON boasts of being the biggest competition in Africa that is held every 2 years.

Its last edition in Cameroon was shown in more than 160 countries and attracted more than 600 million viewers.

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