Zimbabwe Coach Complains of Congested Football Calendar and Impact on the Sport

The Confederation of African Football (CAF) has experienced a congested calendar this season with teams struggling to honour various tournaments.

Zimbabwe coach Michael Nees says the situation has made it difficult for teams without resources to give their best.

Nees is a German professional football coach and former player who currently works as manager of the Zimbabwe senior men’s team.

“The calendar has been condensed in such a way that if your key player gets injured there is no time to recover,” he explained.

Nees further said that teams are spending a lot of time travelling for fixtures and insists the situation only favours big teams.”

“For big teams like Cameroon, they can afford to hire a chartered flight and so most of the time you find their players relaxing by the pool and smiling at you,” he added.

He said there has been literally no time to recover after playing a match as you are always travelling.

Nees said it doesn’t make it easy that travelling in Africa can be very stressful and long.

“For teams that have foreign players and not well supported it can be a logistical challenge considering that travel distances in Africa are very huge.

“There is just two days for training and then you have to play. It is not like in the past when you could have a team in camp for two weeks. In such a situation teams like Kenya and Zimbabwe have a big disadvantage.”

Nees is also worried if he will have his players ready for the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations finals to be held in Morocco at the end of next year.

“It is a bit strange that we have to wait for more than a year to play in a tournament we have qualified for.

“We knew about this before the qualifications but the challenge now is whether my players will be in shape and free of injury.

“Our target remains to get out of the group . It is too far now predict what will happen because a lot can change between now and then.”