The Ghana Football Association (GFA) has called on the South African Football Association (SAFA) to show respect to its achievement on the field in Sunday’s 2022 World Cup qualifier.
In its first reaction to allegations from SAFA since the Black Stars’ 1-0 win over the Bafana Bafana in Group G’s decider of the African qualifiers for next year’s world cup, the GFA did not hold back in spelling out what they describe as “the facts”.
The defeat meant South Africa was not making it to the playoffs of the African qualifiers for the 2022 World Cup.
The GFA said, “it is shocking, irresponsible, and outright disrespect” for SAFA and the South African media to be spreading falsehood to their fans rather than accepting their failure.
This all resulted from South Africa’s protest filed to Fifa to investigate, among others, match-fixing, corruption, and bribery in the game.
The GFA has also acknowledged receipt of Fifa’s request for it to respond to the protest, if any, by November 20.
Read full press statement below:
“The Black Stars is a globally accepted brand that would not indulge in any act to bring the game into disrepute. Ghana has been to three FIFA World Cup Tournaments and remains the only African country in history to win the FIFA World Youth Championships in 2009. We worked very hard for the victory against South Africa. The Black Stars played well and won on merit without any form of support from the officiating officials.
The Ghana Football Association call on the South African Football Association to responsibly accept defeat and show respect to the Black Star’s achievement on the field, for this is not the first time Ghana has defeated South Africa and this will not be the last time. In fact, every South African knows the pedigree of the Black Stars in football, a reason the team has a lot of following in South Africa. The GFA will continue to project the positive image of football and protect the integrity of the game across the globe.
The GFA wishes to state clearly that we will always operate within the FIFA Regulations and focus on our next match which is a play-off against any of the qualified teams we may be paired against.
As a good sporting Association, we know that Bafana Bafana gave it their all but lost to a better team (and must be forthright to tell the South African public this). We wish Bafana Bafana and our colleagues at SAFA better luck next time.”
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