Head coach of Congo, Claude Le Roy was furious that his side were delayed for over an hour on the way to the stadium before securing a draw against hosts Equatorial Guinea.
He blasted the organisers and Confederation of African Football after for the lack of basic necessities for every team ahead of the opening game of the Cup of Nations.
“When we go from our team hotel to the stadium for training it takes 12 minutes,” said Claude Le Roy, head coach of Congo, after the 1-1 draw with hosts Equatorial Guinea.
We were on the bus for 65 minutes, stuck in a traffic jam with everybody else. It was 40 degrees Celsius and the air conditioning wasn’t working. I called for help, but the police at the roadside were just laughing. I’m not using it as an excuse, but we started terribly. If CAF don’t understand that there should be a police escort for teams to the stadium, well, they should understand it now.
Equatorial Guinea only had 57 days to prepare for Afcon 2015 a very little time since the host country normally has 4 years to prepare.
Equatorial Guinea stepped in as hosts only two months ago when Morocco withdrew due to fears of an Ebola outbreak but Le Roy argued you can not give everything to the hosts.
“Fantastic, they saved the competition,” said Le Roy, who is leading a team at this
tournament for the eighth time. “But you can’t give them everything. The same thing [traffic problems] happened to Burkina Faso.”
Thievy Bifouma, who plays in La Liga for Almeria, scored Congo’s deserved equalizer to crown an impressive display after Emilio Nsue, of Middlesbrough, had put Equatorial Guinea ahead and Le Roy told Goal he was happy with the result.
We had plenty of talent on the pitch and on the bench, and this is a good start. It’s very, very important, psychologically,that we came back well. It gives us a platform.