Jurgen Klopp
Jurgen Klopp said Liverpool still don’t know when the club will release Mohamed Salah, Sadio Mane and Naby Keita for international duty at the Africa Cup of Nations, despite the start of the tournament being less than a month away.
The 24-team competition, delayed by 12 months due to the COVID-19 pandemic, is due to kickoff on January 9 when host nation Cameroon play Burkina Faso in Yaounde.
Reports on Wednesday, which sources at the Confederation of African Football (CAF) dismissed to ESPN, suggested that the tournament could be cancelled because of the pandemic and it has also been reported that the European Club Association (ECA) has written to FIFA to warn that clubs may not release players for the biennial competition.
When asked at news conference about whether he believed the tournament should be cancelled, Klopp stopped short of expressing his opinion on the situation, saying, “I have nothing to say. The real authorities have to decide these kinds of things, I have no idea what the situation is around the world exactly. That is how it is.”
But with Salah, Mane and Keita due to represent Egypt, Senegal and Guinea respectively in Cameroon next month, there is confusion as to when Liverpool are expected to release the players to join up with their countries.