Emmanuel Adebayor, the distressed captain of Togo, can have as much time off as he needs following the attack on his team in Angola and will not be asked to play for Manchester City until he is ready, his club manager, Roberto Mancini, said. Adebayor is spending time in Lome, the capital of Togo, for three days of official mourning following last Friday's attack in Angola which left two Togo delegation members dead and prompted the team to withdraw from the African Cup of Nations.
Adebayor is expected back in England after that but is unlikely to play for City against Everton at Goodison Park on Saturday. Mancini, speaking after City's 4-1 win over Blackburn Rovers on Monday, said: "We will speak to him when he returns. "Then we will decide. Whenever he wants to play, whenever he feels ready, that is OK. At the moment, we are just very sorry for him. The situation is incredible."
Adebayor has yet to feature for City since Mancini took over as manager from Mark Hughes last month. Adebayor's Togo strike-partner, Floyd Ayite, admitted he does not know when he will return to playing after experiencing tragedy with the Togo team on Friday. The Nancy forward, 21, who is on loan from Bordeaux, escaped unscathed from the ambush in Cabinda but is not yet ready to return to domestic action.
"I need to be with those close to me and to talk to them," said Ayite. "I will never be able to forget this tragedy but I have to manage to live with it better. "As soon as I doze off I hear again the shots, the machine guns, the rockets. It was war and it's not so easy just to walk away undamaged." Seydou Keita, the Barcelona and Mali midfielder, feels the tournament should have been cancelled. "If only the competition had been cancelled," he said. "You can't leave home to die.
"Personally, I have to say that I am scared because I don't know this country. After seeing what happened to Togo, I am scared. You don't know when a problem could happen again. My only worry is returning home." Keita revealed he fears it will be hard for African football to improve its image in the wake of the attack. "What happened is a very difficult situation for Togo but it is also very negative for African football," continued Keita. "The Confederation of African Football and politicians of this continent have to take measures to avoid these situations.
"Football has become something very important throughout the world and the image which has been left following the attack is something very bad for African football. We came here to play not to die." Meanwhile, Danny Jordaan, the chief executive of South Africa's World Cup organising committee, will make his observations known to the Confederation of African Football (CAF) about the circumstances surrounding Togo's disqualification from the African Cup of Nations.
Confusion surrounded Togo's status in the competition right up to kick-off in their scheduled match against Ghana on Monday even though the team had already returned to the west African state the previous day. An announcement was made by CAF on Monday night that Togo had been "disqualified" from the tournament. Asked whether CAF's description of their exit as a disqualification was insensitive, Jordaan said: "I prefer to make my observations and my own assessments on what has happened and deal directly with CAF, which I'll do.
"Any football tournament is about celebrating life, it is about seeing the best ability of the best footballers and that is what Togo wanted to show. "Togo have not qualified for the World Cup finals so the African Nations Cup was a special platform for them. "In these tragic circumstances one can understand if the team says from a mental or psychological point of view that it is difficult to continue. My sympathy would be with the team. One hopes that these matters will be understood in that context."
Jordaan reiterated his position that the attack in Angola had no bearing on South Africa's own plans to host the World Cup this summer. * With agencies