Cape Coast Stadium pitch a worry for Ghana ahead of South Africa game

The Ghana FA are scratching their heads over the state of the pitch of the Cape Coast Stadium for next week's 2021 Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers against South Africa.

The lack of permanent groundsman has left the pitch is a bad state with the grass now brown with just nine days to the match against Bafana Bafana.

Ghana FA sent some of its leading officials to inspect the stadium, hotel and training pitches in Cape Coast on Monday for next week's match which led to the discovery.

Executive Council members Frederick Achempong and Linford Asamoah were joined by the Deputy General Secretary of the GFA Alex Asante as they travelled from Accra to assess the city's level of preparedness for the game.

The Regional FA chairman Robert Duncan and the Regional Sports Development Officer Sarfo Adjei met the delegation when they inspected the stadium and the other training pitches.

The grass at the Cape Coast Stadium was brown when the delegation visited the place sparking worries that the field would be patchy for the match but officials assured the GFA that by match day it will be lush green as work is underway on it.

The delegation also inspected the floodlights and standby generators for the game as the match will be played at 7pm to allow workers the time to attend the game.

The two hotels scheduled for South Africa and Ghana respectively are Elmina Beach Hotel and the Royal Ridge Hotels which led the delegation to visit the two places of accommodation for both teams.

They were satisfied with the hotels but asked work on the pitch and other minor things to be escalated before next week.

Black Stars head coach Kwesi Appiah will have all his 23 players available on November 12 ahead of 2021 Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers against South Africa and São Tomé and Príncipe.

The European leagues will break this coming weekend with players free to join their respective national teams for the various competitions and qualifiers

Coach Appiah is expected to have his 23-man squad in camp two days- before the first game against South Africa on November 14 at the Cape Coast Sports Stadium.