THE winner of the African Cup of Nations gets a $2 million reward, an amount former Black Stars defender Sammy Osei Kuffour says is "sad". “How can you give a country $2m? CAF should do something about it,” he said adding that “I was really sad when I heard Zambian Football legend, Kalusha say that the prize money for winning the Africa Cup of Nations is $2m on the Super Sports programme, Soccer Africa, the last time.”
Kuffour is also among the star-studded list of former African greats doing 24-hour anlaysis and punditry for here at SuperSport for the tournament. The 2001 Uefa Champions league winner said the African soccer governing body must put its house in order and make sure the prize money is raised higher to a respectable standard. He was speaking on a local Ghanaian TV station, eTV. The winner of the 2010 Uefa Champions league earned €31, 500,000 in bonuses and prize money alone and Kuffour feels CAF must take a leaf from Uefa. “Somebody wins the Uefa Champions league and gets more than $100m and when you win the Africa Cup of Nations, you get $2m!
At least it should be more than $10m that is my personal view. Now we have a lot of sponsorships from Orange, DSTV, the TV rights and everything.” This would not be the first time that eye brows have been raised about the prize money given out to winners of CAF organised competitions. Many clubs who participate in the CAF Champion’s league and the confederations have long complained about the issue of the $1m prize money since according to them, it’s inadequate to even cater for the expenses the teams incur in the run up to the finals.
Meanwhile, the Ghanaian government is spending $5.6million on the national teams preparations, bonuses and other expenses towards the tournament in Equatorial Guinea and Gabon.
