South African born attacker Keagan Dolly is set to miss the country’s crucial AFCON qualifiers against Ghana and Sudan later this month.
Going into this fixture, Ghana and South Africa are joint on top of group C with 9 points and just one goal difference puts the Black Stars ahead.
It can be recalled that FIFA said last month that clubs are not mandated to release players to countries where players will have to observe self-isolation for at least five days upon arrival. That has come into play already.
The LFP [French professional league] voted to block their players from travelling out of the EU because according to them, if a player returns from International duty he’ll be expected to self-isolate for seven days and that will mean missing the next game week.
In a joint statement by the LFP, they said: “At the initiative of the presidents of the Ligue 1 and Ligue 2, a consultation was carried out on Wednesday, March 17 with all club presidents concerning players outside the France A team likely to participate in a match outside of France or the EU / EEA zone during the next international period in March.
“In the absence of an exemption for foreign international players made available to their national team and in view of the response times imposed by international regulations, the clubs of Ligue 1 Uber Eats and Ligue 2 BKT have decided unanimously this Wednesday, March 17 to apply the FIFA circular of February 5, 2021, taking into account the many travel restrictions in the world.
“In this context, the clubs will not make available for selection the foreign players summoned for matches outside the EU / EEA zone during the next international period in March.”
This law means Dolly alongside Percy Tau and Bongani Zungu will not be allowed by their clubs to travel for their AFCON qualifiers.
The South African coach Molefi Nteski will now have his work cut out for him as it is yet to know if he will turn this minor set-back into a comeback. He would have been banking on the services of his International stars in these crucial matches.
This comes as a major blow for Dolly in particular who was widely expected to see game time in the upcoming international fixtures.
The former Mamelodi Sundowns winger has featured 16 times for Montpellier this season. However, most of them have been cameo appearances and it’s no surprise he has only totaled 369 minutes for the French outfit.