Keita Balde is going to have a quiet weekend
Throughout football history, technology has at times gotten in the way of certain things getting achieved. The most famous (and to be honest, only one I can think of) example is David De Gea’s proposed move to Real Madrid getting ditched due to the fact that a fax machine at Old Trafford wasn’t working.
Thankfully there is a new edition to this list of one, in the form of Senegal’s recent mishap when trying to call up striker Keita Balde.
You see, Senegal were attempting to call up Keita Balde to their 2019 Africa Cup of Nations qualifier against Equatorial Guinea on Sunday, and had to contact his club Inter Milan as is protocol.
The weird news of the day:
Inter’s Keita Balde missing on Senegal call-up because…Senegal sent the call-up to an old mail of Inter, as admitted by Senegal FA vicepresident himself
— Tancredi Palmeri (@tancredipalmeri) November 13, 2018
Foolishly, rather than contact the club by phone, fax, telegram, pigeon or text message, Senegal decided to email Inter. Unfortunately for them, they used an email address which turned out to be an old one. And as such, Inter have refused to comply with the call-up.
As stupid and ludicrous as this sounds, Abdoulaye Sow, vice president of the Senegalese FA, confirmed the news in a statement:
“We have sent an email to Inter to inform them of the summoned player, but it was sent to the old email address that Internazionale Milano no longer uses. They changed their address. At the current moment, the player can not leave and can not be called to join us. His club is uncompromising.”
