Description of issue
African national teams, both senior and junior, regularly have competitive fixtures that clash with CAF Champions League matches. This is deeply frustrating, as it means that my players are called up to the National team at precisely the moment I need them most. This phenomenon seems to get worse the longer into a save you go - it is particularly egregious in season 2026/7, in which nearly every single CAF Champions League fixture, including qualifiers, seems to clash with an international match. I believe that this is unrealistic as international fixtures do not tend to clash with CAF Champions League ties in real life, is deeply frustrating, and that even if they did clash, there would be ways around this issue (see below).
I have attached a modded file that demonstrates this tendency. The mod is daveincid's one, and he has assured me that the same phenomenon should occur in the base game as well. To reproduce, start a save with a South African team and sim forward 3 or 4 seasons, then compare the dates of the international fixtures and call-up dates with those of the CAF club competitions.
As a side note, I think it would be helpful to have more flexibility as a club manager when players are called up for international duty for the country in which you are based. If your club is taking part in a continental competition, them performing well should reflect well on the domestic league as well, and thus it should be possible in principle to say something like "I will release my players for the second of these two international matches, but you will appreciate that as the only team still in continental competition, it will be good for this country's football as a whole for my team to give a good account of themselves in this CAF tie". To tie this to specifics, my team in this save, Kafue Celtic, are the best team in Zambia and the only one from Zambia in several seasons to make even the Group Stage of either of the African continental competitions. As a Zambia Assistant Researcher, I would state that in the unlikely event that a CAF Champions League tie actually clashed with an international fixture, the Football Association of Zambia would move heaven and earth to enable their club team to compete effectively in the Champions League - perhaps organising special flights for the Kafue Celtic players to join the international camp later for example. I appreciate that Zambia is not a supported league but I think this is a more broadly applicable principle.
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