Ghana Coach Calls for More World Cup Places for ‘Exploited’ Africa

During the FIFA World Cup 2022 in Qatar, as well as in previous versions of the world’s biggest football event, African teams have presented themselves as worthy competitors, with two of the five nations taking part in the ongoing tournament already making their way to the last 16, while other two teams still have the chance to follow suit.

More African teams deserve to make it to the FIFA World Cup, according to Ghana's national team coach Otto Addo, who cited the strong performance of African teams in the ongoing 22nd World Cup tournament in Qatar.

Addo, a German-born Ghanaian former player and a current talent coach for Bundesliga’s Borussia Dortmund, argued that the FIFA competition must be more inclusive, with more berths for Africa, where 55 nations fight for only five slots in the FIFA World Cup, while in Europe 44 nations compete for 13 places.

“As you all know, Africa is, yeah, it's an exploited continent. In history a lot of things went wrong and went against us,” Addo said during a press conference on Thursday. “It's very difficult for us, the probability for us to proceed is lower than the other nations like in Europe; they have 13 spots. And so the probability is much, much higher.”

Two out of the five African teams that qualified for FIFA 2022, Senegal and Morocco, have already made their way to the last 16, with Morocco topping the sixth group with 7 points and Senegal taking the second place in the first group with 6 points. Meanwhile, two other African teams, Ghana and Cameroon, still have a chance to qualify for the next round.

Only one out the five African nations, Tunisia, has been eliminated from the Group Stage, although they managed win 1-0 against France, champion of the latest FIFA World Cup 2018 in Russia.

“I'm very, very happy for our African brothers to qualify,” Ghana’s national team manager said. “It's surely an inspiration. I'm happy for Senegal first of all, it's very, very important.”

Ghana has two chances to progress to the knockout stages of the World Cup. The first chance is the best but the hardest: they need beat Uruguay in their last Group Stage match, which is set to take place on Friday at Al Janoub Stadium, in order to secure 6 points.

The second option is to secure at least a draw, which means Ghana will get 4 point while its South American opponent will be left with only two points. In this case, the Black Stars will take second place regard less of the results of the group leader Portugal’s match against South Korea.

“This is what we try to do it for people, we do for Ghana, we do for Africa,” Addo said. “And I hope that everybody understands that we have to give more than we have and everything we have, because sometimes for people at home it's their last hope.”

Commenting on Africa’s chances at the world’s biggest football event, Ghana’s midfielder and Premier League club Arsenal player Thomas Partey said that the World Cup is missing great African professional players because of the limited places for Africa in the FIFA tournament.

“I'm not surprised,” Partey said of the strong showing of the African teams in Qatar 2022. “We know most of the African countries are working harder. We have a lot of quality players ... all those don't qualify.”

As of the present time, the FIFA World Cup 2022 in Qatar is set to close the door of its Group Stage, with the fate of two African national teams, Ghana and Cameroon, waiting to be decided as soon as this Friday. Cameroon will be facing Brazil, a five-time winner of the World Cup and the topper of this tournament’s seventh group, at the Lusail Iconic Stadium. However, the Indomitable Lions’ chances may seem narrow, as they need to win Selecao and hope for either a draw, or for Serbia to beat Switzerland by a one-goal margin in the other game in the group.