Diouf plays for English side Bolton Wanderers

With African stars playing ever bigger roles in Europe's top leagues, next year's Cup of Nations in Ghana has the potential to be the best yet.

But El Hadji Diouf, Senegal's former African player of the year, believes the tournament could be wrecked as a spectacle because its timing.

The Nations Cup is once again scheduled to take place in January and February, at the height of the European season.

In 2006, Diouf was one of five Bolton players who missed a chunk of the Premiership campaign to represent their countries in Egypt.

And the Senegalese striker says he can understand why his manager, Sam Allardyce, was so annoyed at having to do without himself, Abdoulaye Faye, Khalilou Fadiga, Radhi Jaidi and Jay Jay Okocha.

"We are not playing the African Nations Cup at the right time. We need to look at it again," Diouf said.

"Why can't we play when the Premiership is finished? We can play the African Nations Cup in a month at the end of the season.

"This would make it easier for us and easier for the clubs as well.

"It's normal that the clubs don't want us to leave and go and play in the African Nations Cup, because they pay us every week.

"You can't leave the club and your team-mates like that, because the Premiership is very difficult. A team like Bolton may lose three or four players.

"I don't think (Chelsea manager) Jose Mourinho would be happy about losing Didier Drogba or Barcelona happy about losing Samuel Eto'o."

Diouf believes governing bodies in Africa are to blame for the current, unsatisfactory situation.

He explained: "If you look at the Premiership you will see that African players are doing well - like Shabani Nonda, Benni McCarthy, and Didier Drogba.

"Also if you look at Spain we are doing well there and everywhere else in the world. African players don't have a problem playing in Europe. The problem is in Africa.

"Some federations don't respect football, don't care what month we play the Nations Cup just as long as we do.

"We need good people in charge who will safeguard African football."

Senegal were World Cup quarter-finalists in Japan and South Korea in 2002 but surprisingly failed to qualify for last year's finals Germany.

Diouf says the setback has made him more determined to help his country reclaim their former status as one of the continent's elite teams.

In a qualifying group consisting of Burkina Faso, Tanzania and Mozambique, the West Africans are strong favourites to progress to the Ghana showpiece.

But Senegal still have unpleasant memories of the World Cup qualification, when they were unexpectedly leapfrogged by Togo.

Diouf added: "We want to win the African Nations Cup for the first time, for our country and because we are a big team. Everybody at home is waiting for us to do well and we want to do well.

"We are the favourites in our group and everybody knows that but sometimes the favourites don't always win.

"When we played the qualification games for the World Cup, everybody thought that it would be easy for us to qualify, but Togo came.

"You have to be focused, play well and respect the opposition. If we do that we will qualify easily, but if we don't do that we won't qualify.

"I respect Ivory Coast, Ghana, Togo and Angola for reaching the World Cup and what they achieved there, but everybody knows the big teams in Africa didn't go to the World Cup.