Ghana Football Association (GFA) Executive Council member Sammy Anim Addo has appealed for massive support for the Black Stars ahead of the huge 2022 FIFA World Cup playoff against their west African rivals Nigeria.
The two continental giants will slug it out twice in the space of four days later this month with the aggregate securing qualification to the World Cup in Qatar.
“This World Cup is too paramount for all of us to make it only a GFA thing. I’m pleading, it’s for Ghana, it’s for everybody, please if any of us made any error, any mistake and we offended you in a way, please we are humans. Come and support the Black Stars.”
“I am calling on everybody, especially the candidates who contested the 2019 GFA Elections. Everybody must come on board. My seniors, George [Afriyie], Palmer [Wilfed Osei Kwaku], Nana Yaw Amponsah, all the candidates and all the football-loving people of Ghana,” Sammy Anim Addo said on Citi TV.
On paper, Nigeria are slight favourites to win the tie and they seem to be doing the right things. They announced their squad early this month after a high-profile meeting between the players, interim coach Augustine Eguavoen, Nigerian Football Federation boss Amaju Pinnick and Sports Minister Sunday Akin Dare.
By contrast, Ghana’s squad has not been made public with less than 10 days to the first game on March 25, 2022, at the Baba Yara Stadium.
“It is a technical decision backed by management, and it is a well-thought-out and purely strategic move,” GFA communications director Henry Asante Twum said on Wednesday.
“They felt it’s a way of controlling or minimising the abuse that normally takes place before games, especially on social media. Sometimes, the public abuse gets to the players and affects their mentality,”
“I know the players and their clubs have been informed and the coaches are in talks with the individual players as we speak.
“Coaches can choose not to go public at all and it’s within their right to do so.”
The return leg is scheduled for Moshood Abiola National Stadium in Abuja on March 29.
Discussion about this post