{"id":221831,"date":"2026-01-01T15:07:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-01T15:07:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/221831\/"},"modified":"2026-01-01T15:07:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-01T15:07:08","slug":"gabon-ditch-aubameyang-and-suspend-national-team-after-disgraceful-afcon-gabon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/221831\/","title":{"rendered":"Gabon ditch Aubameyang and suspend national team after \u2018disgraceful\u2019 Afcon | Gabon"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Gabon\u2019s government has announced the suspension of the national football team, the sacking of their coach and the kicking of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang off the squad in the wake of three defeats at the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/football\/africannationscup\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" data-component=\"auto-linked-tag\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Africa Cup of Nations<\/a> finals.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Gabon\u2019s acting sports minister announced on television the suspension of the national team after they finished last in their group and were eliminated from the tournament in Morocco.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">\u201cGiven the Panthers\u2019 disgraceful performance at the Africa Cup of Nations, the government has decided to dissolve the coaching staff, suspend the national team until further notice, and exclude players Bruno Ecuele Manga and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang,\u201d said Simplice-D\u00e9sir\u00e9 Mamboula after <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/football\/2025\/dec\/31\/afcon-roundup-burkina-faso-sudan-algeria-equatorial-guinea-cote-divoire-cameroon-gabon-mozambique\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Wednesday\u2019s 3-2 loss to C\u00f4te d\u2019Ivoire<\/a> in Marrakech.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Gabon, coached by the former defender Thierry Mouyouma, had already been eliminated after losing their opening pair of Group F fixtures to Cameroon and Mozambique, but in their final outing were 2-0 up over the defending champions before conceding three goals and going down to a second string Ivorian lineup.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Neither Aubameyang nor the veteran defender Ecuele Manga played on Wednesday, with the former having returned to his club, Marseille, for treatment on a thigh injury. The former African Footballer of the Year responded on social media, saying on X: \u201cI think the team\u2019s problems are much deeper than the individual I am.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Aubameyang, at 36, had likely played his last game for Gabon in their defeat by Mozambique, as was also likely the case with the 37-year-old former Cardiff City defender Ecuele Manga.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Disbanding the national team used to be a common reaction in Africa to disappointing results, but since Fifa, world football\u2019s governing body, has taken a hard stance against government interference in the running of football associations, it has been a rare occurrence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gabon\u2019s government has announced the suspension of the national football team, the sacking of their coach and the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":221832,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":["post-221831","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221831","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=221831"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221831\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/221832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}