Gabon has announced the suspension of experienced players Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Bruno Ecuele Manga, the suspension of the entire national team, and the dismissal of the coaching staff following the Panthers’ terrible performance in the Africa Cup of Nations.
Gabon lost 3-2 to reigning champions Ivory Coast at the AFCON on Wednesday, thanks to an injury-time goal by Bazoumana Toure.
A third successive defeat in as many games ensured they ended at the bottom of Group F, behind heavyweights Ivory Coast and Cameroon, but also Mozambique.
“Given the Panthers’ disgraceful performance at the AFCON, the government has decided to dissolve the technical staff, suspend the national team until further notice, and remove players Bruno Ecuele Manga and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang,” Minister Simplice-Desire Mamboula said on Gabonese television late on Wednesday.
The video clip of the statement was withdrawn from the ministry’s official channels and the channel’s online platforms shortly after it was broadcast, before being republished on Thursday.
The national team’s performance at the Africa Cup of Nations was reviewed by the Council of Ministers following Sunday’s 3-2 loss to 102nd-ranked Mozambique, which prevented Gabon from progressing to the knockout stage.
Following the defeat, Aubameyang returned to his French club, Marseille, with a thigh injury.
“This has weakened part of our national identity,” Gabon’s President Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema said on Monday, as per an official statement released on Wednesday.
“The national team highlights two major problems: the lack of method and the dispersion of resources,” he added.
The president promised “strong and structural decisions” to “restore rigor, responsibility, and ambition in the governance of national sport.”
That could, however, land Gabon in trouble with football’s world governing body FIFA, which bans government interference in the affairs of its member associations.
