Aubameyang brings curtain down on Gabon career after latest fallout

Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang has decided to end his international career with Gabon after claiming he was “humiliated and smeared” following his omission from the squad after the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations.

The 37-year-old forward, who has represented the Panthers for more than 15 years, made the announcement during an appearance on Canal+ programme Talents d’Afrique. He said he had played at the tournament while injured before being excluded by the Gabonese authorities.

“They humiliated and smeared me even though I had played at the Africa Cup of Nations while injured,” Aubameyang said. “That was the final straw and I prefer to stop there.”

His decision follows another dispute with the country’s football authorities, only a few months after Gabon were eliminated in the group stage of the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations.

Gabon lost all three of their matches at the tournament, after which the government suspended Aubameyang and Bruno Ecuele Manga. Both players were reinstated several days later, but the latest disagreement appears to have brought an end to a relationship that has been marked by repeated tensions.

Aubameyang’s first major break with Gabon came at the 2021 Africa Cup of Nations, which was played in January 2022 in Cameroon.

At the time, he was preparing to leave Arsenal during the winter transfer window and did not play a minute of the competition. He and Mario Lemina had contracted Covid-19 before the tournament, while a leaked video later appeared to show the pair without masks in a nightclub during a training camp in the United Arab Emirates.

The footage prompted controversy because the nightclub visit was considered a possible source of their infections. Although both players subsequently tested negative, the Confederation of African Football refused to allow them to participate, citing the risk of cardiac complications.

The Gabonese Football Federation then authorised both players to return to their clubs. The official explanation was the CAF decision, although reports also suggested disciplinary issues. There were claims that the pair had returned to the team hotel with women after a night of drinking.

In March 2022, Aubameyang told beIN Sports: “Am I still an international player? For now, it is on standby.”

Two months later, on 17 May, he announced his retirement from international football at the age of 32. In a letter, he referred to “13 years of pride representing my country” and thanked the Gabonese people, his coaches, team-mates and his father.

That retirement lasted only one year. In May 2023, Aubameyang returned to the national team after meeting then-president Ali Bongo, who acted as an intermediary between the player, the federation and the coaching staff.

Relations deteriorated again in 2024, this time with Thierry Mouyouma, who had been appointed head coach in October 2023. Aubameyang missed Mouyouma’s first training camp, citing an injury but not attending an examination to confirm it.

Mouyouma said he had tried to contact the player without receiving a response. He left Aubameyang out of the squads in November and March 2024, while the player’s representatives disputed that account.

“The reality is that they never spoke to each other,” Aubameyang’s entourage told La Provence, describing the treatment as “undignified” and saying it was difficult to imagine the two men working together in future.

The pair eventually met at the end of March to resolve their differences. “We spoke completely honestly; he told me what he had to tell me and I did the same,” Aubameyang later told RFI. “People create unnecessary tension. (…) They made him believe I was someone who perhaps thought he was better than others, while I was being told that he was only pretending to contact me.”

Aubameyang returned to the squad once more and helped Gabon reach the semi-finals of the African play-offs for the 2026 World Cup. His most memorable contribution was a four-goal display in a 4-3 win against The Gambia.

His latest departure leaves Gabon without their captain and record goalscorer, with 40 goals in 86 appearances. It also closes a complicated international career that repeatedly shifted between retirement, reconciliation and renewed conflict.

Aubameyang chose Gabon at the age of 19, despite being eligible to play for France. His international career included disappointing Africa Cup of Nations campaigns on home soil, with Gabon reaching the quarter-finals in 2012 before going out in the group stage in 2017.

Those results mean his work with the national team is likely to be viewed as unfinished when compared with the scale of his achievements at club level.