{"id":332054,"date":"2025-08-10T02:37:23","date_gmt":"2025-08-10T02:37:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/332054\/"},"modified":"2025-08-10T02:37:23","modified_gmt":"2025-08-10T02:37:23","slug":"rangers-set-to-lose-key-players-due-to-afcon-schedule-switch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/332054\/","title":{"rendered":"Rangers set to lose key players due to AFCON schedule switch"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n  This is due to the rescheduled African Cup of Nations.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  <a href=\"https:\/\/www.glasgowtimes.co.uk\/topics\/cyriel-dessers\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Cyriel Dessers<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.glasgowtimes.co.uk\/topics\/mohamed-diomande\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Mohamed Diomande<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.glasgowtimes.co.uk\/topics\/hamza-igamane\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Hamza Igamane<\/a>, and Nasser Djiga could miss important away games against <a href=\"https:\/\/www.glasgowtimes.co.uk\/sport\/celtic\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Celtic<\/a>, Aberdeen, and Hearts.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  The tournament, usually played in January and February, will now take place in December and January in Morocco.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  FIFA changed the dates because of the new format of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.glasgowtimes.co.uk\/topics\/champions-league\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Champions League<\/a>, which has crucial league stage games in late January.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  The initial plan to hold the African Cup of Nations this summer was scrapped after the Club World Cup was expanded and scheduled for the same period.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  As a result, the tournament is now set to clash with the festive period, posing a challenge for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.glasgowtimes.co.uk\/sport\/rangers\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Rangers<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  Dessers, Diomande, Igamane, and Djiga are expected to represent Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Morocco, and Burkina Faso respectively at the tournament, with all four countries having qualified.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  FIFA has yet to announce the minimum period clubs must release their players for, but it could potentially see the quartet missing five league games and a Scottish Cup tie.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  This includes three of their most challenging away trips of the season to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.glasgowtimes.co.uk\/sport\/celtic\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Celtic<\/a>, Aberdeen, and Hearts, with the Old Firm game on January 3.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  They could also miss home games against Motherwell and St Mirren, depending on how far they progress in the tournament.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  This is the seventh African Cup of Nations in a row to not go ahead as originally scheduled, due to various reasons like instability in Libya, an Ebola outbreak, delays in stadium construction, Covid, and the rainy season.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  The new schedule poses a significant challenge for Ibrox boss Russell Martin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This is due to the rescheduled African Cup of Nations. Cyriel Dessers, Mohamed Diomande, Hamza Igamane, and Nasser&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":332055,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7826],"tags":[748,918,4884,712,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-332054","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-glasgow","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-glasgow","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-scotland","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115002149603148439","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332054","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=332054"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332054\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/332055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=332054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=332054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=332054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}