No Ghanaian referee qualifies to officiate at the World Cup now – Alex Kotey

Alex Kotey, the Referees Manager of the Ghana Football Association has reacted to the exclusion of Ghanaian referees from FIFA’s pre-selection list for the 2022 World Cup.

Ethiopia, Algeria, Morocco, Senegal Egypt and Congo were the only countries who had their referees included in the list.

Speaking to Citi FM on Ghana’s absence, Alex Kotey said Ghanaians should not expect a referee from the country to officiate at the top level anytime soon.

To get Ghanaian referees to flagship tournaments like the World Cup, Kotey reckons a lot of work ought to be done.

He noted currently, no Ghanaian referee has the requisite skills and experience to handle world cup games.

“Whilst you are working towards achieving that purpose, don’t forget that other countries are also doing same. So, if from Africa they are picking only five, you should not expect for now, looking at the challenges that we have been through, a Ghanaian referee to be selected, because we haven’t gotten there yet,” he said.

“And so, we need to prepare our referees, we need to work on them, we need to put a lot of things in place and this will not even take two years, it can take us three to four years to actually get there, he concluded.