Youth and Sports minister for Ghana Hon. Mustapha Ussif has justified government’s $25 million budgetary allocation for Ghana’s participation in the 2022 Africa Cup of Nations and 2022 FIFA World Cup qualification tournaments saying that his ministry wants to avoid potential repeat of the 2014 Brazil World Cup fiasco of the Black Stars.
The Ghanaian Players coached by Kwesi Appiah at the Coupe du Monde in Brazil refused to trained and threatened to boycott their last group game against Portugal if their appearance fees of $ 100 000 were not paid and this led to the Ghanaian government airlifting not less than $ 3 million physical cash to settle the row.
“We need to plan so we don’t have a repeat of what happened in Brazil when we don’t get money for the players, then they will refuse to pay and instead of focusing on delivery, everybody will now be on the minister,” he said as reported by Citifmonline.com.
“Out of the $25 million, if we have to play in the AFCON, we have to prepare. And we need to play two friendly games. And besides that, the world cup qualifiers that we have to play, we will not spend less than $700,000 on each match.
“Then we are then going to participate in the AFCON and we have to play a series of matches, all the way to the final. So this is an expensive venture.
Government has already dedicated $10 million to the Ministry and put together a four-member team headed by the Sports Minister to raise the remaining $15 million to make up the ministry’s required $25 million.
