THE South African Football Association (Safa) president Danny Jordaan, who is also the Caf vice-president, says that the European-based African-born players are stuck in a conundrum due to the rampaging Coronavirus scourge.
Jordaan said that for an example, Nigeria have a massive 829 players in European leagues and now the biggest challenge was whether they will be staying in Europe or coming back to Africa.
“Africa is facing the same problems. Our neighbours Lesotho and Botswana postponed their fixtures to make the whole Africa shutdown. Travel bans have been imposed and governments are shutting down the countries and so Africa is going to be hugely affected,” said Jordaan.
“And what’s happening now, is that if you look at Nigeria, they have 829 players playing outside of the country,” Jordaan added.
“Other African countries as well have many players in Europe, especially West African countries. Do they come back home to Africa or they stay in Europe where the Covid-19 is causing serious havoc? We see in the news and we are updated as to what is happening and the increasing numbers daily,” he added.
Jordaan added: “So Fifa will have to look at these things. Also, when there’s no new transfer window decided, it creates uncertainty because most African clubs make their revenue through the transfer of players and it means that revenue will be lost. It’s the same here in South Africa, we saw the team at the bottom of the log sell their best players to get the revenue.
So therefore the transfer window is going to affect all who are in Europe and our local-based players,” he added.