CONGO AND BURKINA Faso have been forced to search for a place to stay due to a lack of hotel rooms in Equatorial Guinea at the African Cup of Nations.
Speaking to the BBC Congo coach Claude Le Roy said five of his party of 35 had no accommodation, with the tournament only two days away.
Congo kick off the tournament in the opening game against the hosts on Saturday but the hotel that the majority of players and staff are staying in lacks running water and has exposed electrical cables.
“There are not enough places for my staff and it’s even difficult to find rooms for the players,” Le Roy told the BBC World Service.
“The electricity is terrible, everything is exposed. I wanted to wash my hands. There was no water.
“Some of my assistants went around to see if there were rooms available somewhere but it seems very very difficult.”
There has been much criticism for the way in which the tournament was switched from Morocco to Burkina Faso only two months ago after the north African country raised doubts about hosting due to the Ebola outbreak.
Burkina Faso coach Paul Put has also criticised facilities, saying the tournament should have been delayed until June.
Congo coach Le Roy says his side deliberately arrived a day early as they expected problems.
“I’m not disappointed, that’s what I was expecting. I don’t want a big five-star hotel. I just want something very clean.”
To make matters even more ridiculous the lack of hotels is being used as a motivational factor for teams to get to the last eight with Le Roy saying that, were Congo to do so, they would get a “very nice hotel” as other teams would have left.
