The captain of Arsenal football club, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, has blamed the Confederation of Africa Football (CAF) for the inability of the Gabon national team to leave Banjul airport, the Gambia, on Sunday ahead of Monday’s Group D match against the Gambia national team.
Aubameyang and his national teammates arrived in The Gambia on Sunday to take on the national team of the country in an Africa Cup of Nations qualifying match. But they were told that they would not be able to leave the airport due to administrative reasons.
So, the entire football national team had to wait at the airport for hours without having the opportunity to access their team hotel or have a proper warm-up training ahead of the crucial match.
The night met Aubameyang and his teammates at the airport and they had to sleep on the airport floor until the next day. An infuriated Arsenal‘s striker had to take to his Twitter page to share a picture of himself and the rest of his teammates at the airport at 4:37 am local time.
👏🏽👏🏽record pic.twitter.com/ycUGbPa6Cf
— Aubameyang P-E (@Aubameyang7) November 16, 2020
In the caption, he wrote that the Gabonese football team was at the airport until the morning of the matchday, Monday, November 16. He wrote “record” on the caption of the picture.
Hours later, Aubameyang took to his Twitter handle to write: “It will not demotivate us but people need to know and especially that the @CAF_Online take these responsibilities. 2020 and we want Africa to grow, this is not how we will get there !!!”
The Arsenal star did not stop there, he returned to Twitter to share a picture showing the Gabonese team on a bus to confirm that the team has finally left the airport and they were heading to the team’s hotel.
😈😈😈 pic.twitter.com/mwezw6si72
— Aubameyang P-E (@Aubameyang7) November 16, 2020
He also took to Twitter to lament ahead of the match that his teammates shouldn’t have allowed him to sleep on the bus. He noted how much his teammates are hungry for football and they are ready to play despite the fate they suffered at the airport earlier.
The Arsenal’s talisman wrote: “I know my team. They Ready like Never before. And me they did a misTake Letting me sleep for a couple of Hours Today is the day!!! No Matter the result for me my team won already. When I See the faces this Morning everyone is hungry hungry about Football Let’s fucking Go.”
At the end of the day, Gabon played the Gambia and the host beat Gabon 2-1 to go top of Group D on a goal difference. Both the table-toppers of the group and Aubameyang’s team have won two matches, drawn one, lost one in 4 qualifying games which left them with 7 points apiece.
If the qualifiers end like this, both Gabon and Gambia will qualify from the group and meet other Africa teams at the Africa Cup of Nations in Cameroon in 2022.
“We lost as mens. With pride thanks Panthers”, Aubameyang tweeted a few hours after the match.
We lost as mens
— Aubameyang P-E (@Aubameyang7) November 16, 2020
With pride thanks Panthers 🙏🏽🇬🇦@CAF_Online 🖕🏽 pic.twitter.com/8CGA0lvfk0
