AWCON cancellation, Asisat Oshoala faults CAF

Asisat Oshoala has given an untimely injury scare for Nigeria after the striker picked up a knock in Barcelona’s 1-0 win over Montpelier on Sunday.

Super Falcons forward Asisat Oshoala has condemned the decision of the Confederations of African Football (CAF) to cancel the 2020 African women’s championship.

The 25-year-old Barcelona forward said in an interview that the decisions are evidence that the African football governing body is not prioritizing the development of the women’s football on the continent, like their male counterparts.

CAF confirmed the cancelation of the 2020 AWCON on June 30th due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Oshoala, however, did not hide her disappointment, before branding the decision as a huge setback for women’s football on the continent.

“The cancelation of the AWCON didn’t meet me well, as a player I really felt bad because that’s the only big tournament we have on the continent,” She said.

“This tournament holds every two years and to my surprise, as at March they are still struggling to get host nation and all.”

“Then coming out to say other tournaments have been postponed, while the AWCON has been canceled is actually not fair on the players.”

“They should have come up with reasonable explanations, but I believe they don’t have any excuse to cancel the tournament because they have two years to prepare.” She said.

Oshoala who has won the championship multiple times with the Super Falcons stressed further that CAF has also failed to build on the success of 2016 of the edition which was hosted by Cameroon.

“It’s when you invest in something that you want to get a return, like in 2016 tournament, there was a full stadium in Cameroon and everyone came out to support women’s football, which is unusual.”

“And I think that was our chance to build on it, Women’s football is getting attention and then four years later, CAF decided to cancel the tournament is really sad,” Oshoala said.

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Oshoala concluded that women’s football is not getting the needed attention from CAF and all the national Federations to thrive and it is one of the reasons they are struggling to market the women’s tournament to various investors.

” I don’t think women’s football is getting the attention it needed from CAF and Federations, because if it was the Afcon that was canceled, then various Federation would have come all out to the condemn the decision, but it was the AWCON, I don’t think any Federation has come out to release a statement against the decision,”