Chairman Takes Aim At Fifa

[BlueLion. 21,491]

Chelsea chairman Bruce Buck has hit out at Fifa for their handling of the international calendar as they prepare to lose four players to the African Cup of Nations.

The Blues are set to see Didier Drogba, Michael Essien John Obi Mikel and Salomon Kalou miss a number of games in January as they go away on international duty.

Buck admitted it was a blow to lose the quartet and has called on Fifa to deal with the "craziness" of the international calendar in the future.

Unfortunate

"We will lose several players to the African Nations Cup," said Buck. "This is unfortunate because it is a very difficult time of the season and we will need all of our players to help.

"We do recognise, however, that a player's greatest honour is to play for his country and we have to respect that.

"We can only hope that Fifa will stop some of this craziness in the years ahead and adjust the calendar so that club football is not continually interrupted and disrupted for international events when a better thought-out calendar could solve these anomalies."

Source: Sky Sports

Completely agree with him, its ridiculous.

[Layla 0]

Good on him.

Its stupid! If they get injured as well during the ACN can screw up the rest of the season for them.At the end of the season would make more sense

Edited December 31, 2007 by Layla

[SuperSheva7 0]

seriously, when is this thing going to get moved? everyone agrees that is at a bad time in the year. come on FIFA!

[Aesthetic Relic 301]

The thing is.....everyone knows that the ACON is gonna happen in January. We knew we would lose these players once the tournament begun, so its a bit stupid to come out now and say its "crazy".

Jose said he no longer wanted to sign African players. I doubt for one second he was being racist, but more thoughtful in his quest to have a balanced team all season.

Scandanavian ( I think ) teams are well into their season by the time the C/L qualifiers kick off therefore giving them an advantage on fitness. Is there a call for this to be stopped....NO.

The main reason for the ACON goes ahead in January is probably to do with the weather and time of the year. If they were to play in the summer in 40+ degrees then players would have a serious health issue on their hands. In January the temperature is not as warm and seems the right time to play. In turn it provides a stumbling block for teams who will lose players because of this mid season.

So really....are we in a position to complain