• Players ordered home after terrorist atrocity
• Sports minister asks if team can catch up later
Togo's captain, Emmanuel Adebayor, front, is helped
by a team-mate after the gun attack on Friday.
After a day of fraught negotiation Togo tonight flew
home from the Africa
Cup of Nations following Friday's deadly
gun attack but left the door open for a return later in the
tournament.
As Angola and Mali kicked off in the opening game, which was
drawn 4-4, Togo headed for the airport in the northern province of
Cabinda after being ordered to return by their prime minister, who
sent the presidential plane to pick the players up. "Anybody that
is involved in security matters will tell you that it would be
irresponsible to just pretend that nothing has happened and just
let the show go on," Togo's prime minister, Gilbert Houngbo, told
the BBC World Service. "Security is non-negotiable."
The Togo striker and captain, Emmanuel Adebayor, told reporters at
Cabinda airport: "We have to mourn our dead, we're going back to do
so. We're very sad."
But even as the Togolese plane prepared to leave, a spokesman
for the squad said a final decision on whether the team would quit
the competition altogether had not been made. "We're still talking
with the players, no decision has been made yet. Everything is
possible," he said.
The Togolese sports minister, Christophe Tchao, added to the
uncertainty by saying Togo had asked the Confederation of African
Football (CAF) to find a way for the team to rejoin the competition
later. "We have ordered a three-day mourning," Tchao said. "The
players are leaving with the bodies of their fallen brothers and
we've asked the CAF to find an arrangement so we can catch up with
the competition later."
Adebayor had earlier claimed his team were willing to stay but
the decision appears to have been taken at the prompting of
Houngbo, who maintained the side could not play while the
goalkeeper Dodji Obilale remains in intensive care after the team
bus was ambushed in Cabinda, killing three people. "If some people
present themselves under the Togolese flag, it will be a false
representation," he said.
"The head of state [Faure Gnassingbé] has decided we will
return," Adebayor told a French radio station. "There was a meeting
between players yesterday and we said we were still footballers. We
all decided to do something good for the country and play to honour
those who died. Unfortunately the head of state and the country's
authorities have decided otherwise.
