Gabon’s Minister of Sports has announced sweeping sanctions against the national football team, including the ban of senior players Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Bruno Ecuele Manga, the suspension of the Panthers, and the dismissal of the entire coaching crew following the team’s woeful outing at the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON).
Gabon’s campaign ended in disappointment after an injury-time strike by Bazoumana Toure sealed a 3-2 loss to defending champions Ivory Coast on Wednesday.
The defeat marked Gabon’s third loss in three matches, leaving them bottom of Group F behind Ivory Coast, Cameroon, and Mozambique.
“Given the Panthers’ disgraceful performance at the AFCON, the government has decided to dissolve the technical staff, suspend the national team until further notice, and remove players Bruno Ecuele Manga and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang,” Sports Minister Simplice-Desire Mamboula said during a televised address late Wednesday.
The video of the announcement was initially taken down from the ministry’s and broadcaster’s official platforms a few hours after airing, before being reposted on Thursday.
The Council of Ministers had earlier reviewed the team’s AFCON showing following Sunday’s 3-2 defeat to 102nd-ranked Mozambique, a result that mathematically ruled Gabon out of the knockout stage.
After that loss, Aubameyang returned to his French club, Marseille, citing a thigh injury.
“This has weakened part of our national identity,” President Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema said on Monday, according to an official statement released on Wednesday.
“The national team highlights two major problems: the lack of method and the dispersion of resources,” he added.
The president pledged “strong and structural decisions” aimed at “restore rigour, responsibility and ambition in the governance of national sport.”
However, the government’s intervention could attract sanctions from world football governing body FIFA, which prohibits state interference in the management of its member football associations.