Former Arsenal star, Pierre-Emerick Aubemayang and former Cardiff City’s Bruno Ecuele Manga have been ejected from the Gabon national football team, their team mates, and the coaching apparatus suspended by the country’s own government following their miserable elimination from the African Cup of Nations 2025 tournament.
Branding the team’s performance as disgraceful, the Gabon acting sports minister Simplice-Desire Mamboula made the announcement on the national television in the wake of their 3-2 defeat to Ivory Coast.
‘Given the Panthers’ 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,’ he said on Thursday, calling on the Gabonese Football Federation to assume all its responsibilities.
Gabon were two goals to the good in the first-half of the Group F tie on Wednesday but relented in the second 45, ending the tournament in Morocco with three defeats from three games.
Ecuele Manga was dropped against Ivory Coast by their coach Thierry Mayouma, who also left his job, while Aubameyang returned to his club Marseille with a thigh injury before the match.
Aubameyang appeared in both of Gabon’s other defeats, scoring in their 3-2 loss against Mozambique and coming from the bench during their 1-0 loss to Cameroon last week.
The former Arsenal and Chelsea striker is his nation’s top-ever scorer but has likely played his last game for the side at the age of 36.
Gabon had gone into the tournament off the back of their failed World Cup qualification campaign, where they lost to Nigeria in a play-off semifinal. They had narrowly missed out on automatic qualification by one point.
The disbanding of the national team by governments used to be common practice in African nations but FIFA has since made efforts to clamp down on it.
In 2017, the FIFA suspended Mali’s Football Association in March 2017 after the nation’s sports minister Housseïni Amion Guindo disbanded its executive committee.
Mr Guindo’s actions saw the association’s board and president Boubacar Baba Diarra ousted from their roles.