Ghana assistant Coach laments on poor playing pitches at AFCON 2017

Black Stars assistant Coach Maxwell Konadu has bemoaned the poor playing surfaces at the ongoing Africa Cup of Nations in Gabon.

The playing turfs in Gabon has been a major concern to several teams who have complained since the beginning of the competition.

The poor nature of the fields have resulted in several teams losing their key players through injuries.

Ghana lost defender Abdul Baba Rahman in the team’s opening group match against Uganda.

Other team’s such as Burkina Faso and Egypt have also lost key players through injuries.

Maxwell Konadu is calling on organizers to help improve the pitches in order to have a successful competition.

“We are not enjoying the best of pitches here, in my opinion I think the training pitches are even better than the main stadia that we play,” he spoke to TV3.

“This something we all hope CAF will do something about, improve the pitches for our great stars who are playing all over the world.

“On our own continent if we can’t put up pitches for our own starts it will come to a point that players will feel reluctant.

“For this tournament to be successful we need to improve on so many areas, hotel accommodations and pitches. It is very important, now we have lost Baba Rahman, other countries have also lost players.”

The bad nature of the Port Gentil pitch forced organizers to create an artificial pitch in the dressing rooms for warm-ups.