The coach is the Bafana Bafana of South Africa Hugo Broos has urged the Confederation of African Football (CAF) to go hard on a decision with Zimbabwe in the world cup qualifiers race.
In the wake of the Warriors 1-1 draw against the Super Eagles of Nigeria at their adopted ground in Rwanda, the coach said teams like Zimbabwe who can’t play their home games in their country, due to poor infrastructure should not to be allowed to play in CAF games.
Zimbabwe is one among the 17 national teams, who will be playing their home games away from their country after CAF deemed their facility as not suitable enough to host games in the World Cup qualifiers.
Broos is of the opinion that it has taken the shine off the beauty and the real essence of why games are played at home.
“This one thing I don’t understand in African football is that home games are not home games,” said Broos.
“I think Zimbabwe will play their home games in South Africa, so we have a little advantage for that game.”
“So, what I saw in the past, for example, Liberia played their home game in Morocco, I’m very sorry but this is not correct. I think CAF must do something about this”, he opined.
Asked what he thinks is the best solution, he called for national teams with such cases to be given a time frame to make their stadiums ready to host games at home, and if they failed to do within the stipulated time they should be banned.
“I know it is not easy for those countries to have appropriate stadiums because it is something about money, but you can easily say, ‘in five years, if you don’t have a stadium, then you don’t play CAF games anymore, you don’t play AFCON qualifiers and that of the World Cup,” Broos said.
“But if you say nothing and those things happen, then the competition is not 100% correct anymore. It is not up to us, but it is the guys up there who have decided this and I hope one day they will decide by putting a period to say, ‘Okay, if you have not decided on the stadium that you need to have, I’m very sorry, you had those three or four or five years, finished, no qualifiers anymore – no for World Cup or AFCON’. Maybe then, they will do something”, he said shortly before his team’s 0-2 loss to Rwanda yesterday.
