Kenya national team head coach Engin Firat has expressed his frustration with the Confederation of African Football (Caf) following their decision to have host nations Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania play in the 2024 Africa Nations Championship (Chan) qualifiers slated for February 1-28, 2025.

This marks the first time the tournament is hosted n three countries.

While host nations have automatic qualification for the tournament, the African body included the East African nations in the draw for the qualification campaign.

However, according to the  54-year-old Turkish coach, Caf’s decision to have host nations play in the qualifiers despite their automatic qualification status could have significantly impacted the team’s first-leg defeat.

“It does not make sense to me, especially knowing these are professional players who are used to playing for something, but now they have nothing to play for,” averred a fuming Firat.

“This is not something little; it is the most important thing in sport—to have something to play for. If you are a normal person, it affects you mentally. You know you have a match at the weekend, so you don’t want to get injured. Therefore, these kinds of matches do not make sense to me. I cannot say the players benefited; how? I do not understand.”

Firat continued, “We had only one training session before the game, and if you are 2-0 down, you have nothing to lose anymore. Therefore, we took all risks and tried, but you have to see that South Sudan pressed more, and my boys were physically down in the last 20 minutes.”

Kenya was drawn to face South Sudan, and the two sides met on Sunday, October 27, at Juba National Stadium, with the Bright Stars emerging 2-0 winners in the first leg.

The return leg will take place this Sunday at 4pm at the Stade Nelson Mandela Stadium in Uganda.

Firat’s lineup against South Sudan featured Bandari FC custodian Bryne Omondi starting in goal, with a defense consisting of Daniel Sakari, Sylvester Owino, Musa Mohammed and Geoffrey Ochieng.