Afcon shoots Africa in the foot

A new year looms, bringing with it yet another Africa Cup of Nations.

Forgive my stubbornly slow pulse. Not many of this continent's football freaks get stirred up any more by the prospect of an African championship, except the proud fans of dusty gatecrashers such as Niger and Botswana.

Let's face it: the Afcon, in its current format, is damaging the brand of African football.

For the moment, let's leave aside the fact that one of the 2012 edition's joint host governments, that of Equatorial Guinea, is one of the world's most cynical kleptocracies. Let's consider only the football in prospect, which, on the evidence of the last tournament, will be sloppy and jaded.

And with none of Cameroon, Nigeria, Egypt and Bafana in attendance, the array of stars will resemble that of a smoggy night in Vanderbijlpark. Ghana's Black Stars may illuminate the proceedings, and they have a tantalisingly open road to what would be their first title since 1982. Mali, Senegal and even Zambia have a decent shot at claiming a first Afcon triumph.

Botswana will accuse me and other South African Afcon-bashers of a sour-grapes attitude. But nobody can deny that the competition lacks mystique and intensity because it's always bloody happening every two years instead of the four-year interval that invigorates the Euro champs and the Copa America.

The rationale for biennial tournaments has been developmental: the idea is to accelerate the construction of stadiums across the continent. But we know all about the risks of over-investment in fancy arenas. They bring prestige to the powerful, not progress to the poor. Increasingly, the Afcon has been monopolised as a marketing tool for autocratic oil-rich regimes: Angola, Gabon, and Equatorial Guinea.

But for the Libyan civil war and his demise, Muammar Gaddafi would have been the fourth kleptocrat in succession to be legitimised by the Afcon roadshow.

Ivory Coast defender Kolo Touré is no stranger to the viscous charms of the petrodollar, but he's less than in love with the Afcon himself. During a recent spell on the City bench, he put it bluntly: "I feel that it's going to be more and more difficult for us Africans to compete in the Afcon; it's catastrophic.

"Coaches no longer want to sign players because of it," he said.

"I am convinced that, if I am not playing, it's not only for footballing reasons. If it was only about the game, I'd be playing every week. I am the victim of that, and it has got to be said. African players are the victims of discrimination."

Touré is right, and the tally of African players employed by Europe's top 10 clubs has declined in recent years. City are now one of the few superclubs who will take a serious hit during the Afcon month - Yaya Touré's absence will hurt their title charge. Arsenal, Chelsea and Barcelona have all steadily reduced their dependence on African talent. Such discrimination is rational and inevitable.

Until the Afcon goes quadrennial (and it won't in the foreseeable future), more and more African stars will quit international football young to fulfil their potential at club level, as Emmanuel Adebayor and Kevin-Prince Boateng have done. Call them unpatriotic if you like, but the truth is that ridiculous sums of money can turn the most ardent patriots into citizens of the world.