A World Cup qualifying game costs at least $700k– Sports Minister reveals

Minister for Youth and Sports, Mustapha Ussif has revealed that the state will spend at least $700,000 on each 2022 World Cup qualifying game scheduled to kick off in June later this year.

The Black Stars of Ghana will engage South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Ethiopia in the qualifiers, playing each country twice for a total of six matches.

If Ghana tops the group, they will then be drawn against one of the other ten group winners in the last round of qualifiers for home and away tie that will determine the five countries to represent the continent in Qatar.

The Minister made the revelation in explaining why his office needed 25 million dollars to fund national team activities for the next two years.

According to the Member of Parliament for Kubori-Yagaba, the team’s qualifying campaign for the World Cup alone will cost the state an estimated $5.6 million.

“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," he told Citi TV.

“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.

“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 added.

The 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.