The tournament begins on December 21st, with initial requirement for players to leave their club duties before the eighth. This meant that Celtic\u2019s representatives could feasibly miss ten games for the club.<\/p>\n
But this has changed after a last-minute FIFA announcement. <\/p>\n
Celtic affected by last-minute AFCON change by FIFA<\/p>\n
The tournament, being staged in Morocco, understandably takes priority for players over their clubs.<\/p>\n
The winter schedule is a controversial topic, but is undoubtedly justifiable from both weather and visibility perspectives.<\/p>\n
READ MORE: Scott Bain attracting surprise interest at Falkirk, months after Celtic exit<\/a><\/p>\n The December 8th cut-off seems a bit excessive, given the tournament\u2019s start date \u2013 and this has been recognised by FIFA.<\/p>\n The governing body has now announced that the date has been changed to the 15th, making Tounekti, Iheanacho and Balikwisha available for an additional two games.<\/p>\n And it isn\u2019t just any two games \u2013 it\u2019s the Europa League<\/a> clash against Roma and the Premier Sports Cup<\/a> final against St Mirren.<\/p>\n Players can still be released earlier if an agreement is reached between the clubs and federations \u2013 but given the importance of these two fixtures, don\u2019t expect to see Celtic entertain this.<\/p>\n The news is music to the ears of Wilfried Nancy,<\/a> who will be desperate to get off to a strong start given the momentum built up under Martin O\u2019Neill.<\/a><\/p>\n But once the players do go away for the tournament, Nancy will face a few squad dilemmas.<\/p>\n How will Wilfried Nancy deal with losing Celtic players to AFCON?<\/p>\n Of course, we don\u2019t yet know if Nancy will instantly implement his 3-4-3 system at Celtic, just as Ruben Amorim infamously did at Manchester United.<\/p>\n What we do know is that he was exclusively wedded to it in Columbus. The system sees Celtic operate a narrow front-three a striker with two number 10s, rather than the touchline wingers of the team\u2019s current 4-3-3.<\/p>\n This shape could lend itself to Benjamin Nygren, who has looked awkward when pushed into the 4-3-3 this season. On the left side, it could be Daizen Maeda,<\/a> Reo Hatate,<\/a> Yang Hyun-Jun<\/a> or anyone else in the absence of Tounekti and Balikwisha\u2026 anyone\u2019s guess, really.<\/p>\n With Iheanacho unavailable, Maeda may remain central, keeping Johnny Kenny<\/a> on the bench. And let\u2019s not forget that Shin Yamada<\/a> still exists\u2026<\/p>\n Is MLS an appropriate league for Celtic to be taking managers from? <\/p>\n \ud83d\udc47 Join the debate; share your insight. Use the comment button on the bottom left to have your say <\/p>\n Join Our Newsletter <\/p>\n Receive a digest of our best Celtic content each week direct to your mailbox<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Celtic are one of many European clubs anxiously waiting for the Africa Cup of Nations. The tournament takes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":297522,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[82427,10043,218,55591,13404,49475,101,56,54,55,106896],"class_list":["post-297521","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-africa-cup-of-nations","tag-celtic","tag-football","tag-kelechi-iheanacho","tag-michel-ange-balikwisha","tag-sebastian-tounekti","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-wilfried-nancy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297521","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=297521"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297521\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/297522"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=297521"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=297521"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=297521"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Celtic](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/GettyImages-2241261702-1024x693.jpg\")
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