Executive Council member of the Ghana Football Association (GFA), Nana Oduro Sarfo, has expressed his excitement at a former Liverpool star’s opinion on AFCON.
Jamie Carragher, a Champions League winner with English club Liverpool in the Manchester City-Liverpool post-match made remarks viewed by many as disrespectful to the biggest African football competition, the Africa Cup of Nations.
According to Carragher, Mohammed Salah’s chances of being crowned the best player in the world would be enhanced if he played in ‘major’ competitions, supposedly suggesting the irrelevance of the AFCON.
The context of Nana Oduro Sarfo’s agreement with Carragher’s comments is that African players, especially the Black Stars, tend to perform poorly lately in either the qualifiers or the competition itself.
He opined on the Sports Pack show on Max FM that the players perform better in the World Cup qualifiers because none of them want to miss it but are poor in the AFCON out of fear of losing the club spots.
“I am happy Carragher made that statement because our players that we invite to the AFCON qualifiers don’t show much interest.
This is because AFCON is only for Africa. Look at their performance in the World Cup qualifiers and look at their performance in the AFCON because when they come to AFCON, they are going to lose their place,” he shared on the Sports Pack show on Max FM.
He further urged the International Federation of Association Football (FIFA) to help elevate the standards of AFCON to that of the European Championships and the World Cup.
