Paa Kwesi Fabin, the head coach of Ghana, ascribed the heartbreaking loss to Burkina Faso to the referee’s penalty ruling, which he mockingly called “beautiful.”
It cost them a position in the WAFU Zone B U-17 competition final, according to Fabin, who thinks it wasn’t a penalty.
At the Cape Coast Stadium, Ousmane Camara successfully converted the disputed penalty to give Burkina Faso a 1-0 victory.
“In the first half, they veered a little bit from the instructions they were given but in the second half they came back and played better only for some wonderful penalty to be taken against us,” Fabin said at the post-match presser.
Nigeria, which earlier in the day defeated Ivory Coast 3-1, will face Burkina Faso in the championship match.
Due to the loss, Ghana was unable to participate in the 2023 Africa U-17 Cup of Nations competition.
After failing to qualify in 2019, Ghana has now missed the U-17 AFCON for two consecutive years.
At the youth championship in Algeria the following year, Burkina Faso and Nigeria would represent the WAFU Zone B.
