The Ghana Football Association is collaborating with the Ministry of Youth and Sports and the National Sports Authority to make the Baba Yara Stadium befitting to host senior International Category “A” matches.
This follows the decision of the Confederation of African Football to revoke the One-match Provisional Licence that was issued for the Baba Yara Stadium ahead of the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 play-off tie against Nigeria.
After several appeals by the Ghana Football Association and inspections, CAF issued a conditional Licence that gave Ghana the opportunity to host the 1st of the two legs in Kumasi after the Cape Coast stadium playing pitch was deemed unfit to host the match at the time.
‘’We are at a very crucial stage as this issue keeps coming back. The last thing we want to see is to allow CAF to determine where we play our home match’’ Prosper Harrison Addo (Esq.) told www.ghanafa.org
‘’The Baba Yara stadium is one historic stadium where the various national teams have chalked incredible success in our football history and so we can’t afford to allow this to happen to us. We are having a thorough discussion with the National Sports Authority (NSA) with the Ministry of Youth and Sports providing excellent leadership to ensure that the various conditions are met as quickly as we can.
‘’The game against Nigeria was a huge success so it is our responsibility to build on it in subsequent matches but before then we all need to put our shoulders to the wheel to get the venue approved for our matches’’ he added.
It will be recalled that the Confederation of African Football issued a letter to the GFA announcing their decision to automatically remove the Baba Yara stadium from the list of CAF approved stadiums for Senior Category “A” matches.
‘’The Baba Yara stadium was approved under the condition that specific points were to be corrected in the stadium, based on the report received from the CAF inspector that was onsite, we regret to inform you that the improvements made are still not up to the standards required by CAF to host Senior International A matches.
Unfortunately, the level of implementation of all the CAF remarks in the stadium were not satisfactory, including the quality of the equipment’s and materials used in the different functional areas in the stadium’’ the CAF statement read.
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