Head coach for the Ghana national team, CK Akonnor has expressed his dissatisfaction with how countries are forced to make do without key players due to COVID-19 quarantine restrictions.
European based players are being denied the chance to represent their nations in the ongoing Fifa World Cup qualifiers due to quarantine measures once they travel to red-list countries like South Africa.
The Black Stars will be hosted by South Africa in the second Group G game today. Akonnor will be without seven of his key players to face Bafana Bafana at FNB Stadium.
England-based quintet – Daniel Amartey (Leicester City), Jeffrey Schlupp (Leicester City), Jordan Ayew (Crystal Palace), Andrew Yiadom (Reading FC) and Baba Abdul Rahman (Reading FC) as well as Kamaldeen Sulemana (Stade Rennais, France) and Daniel-Kofi Kyereh (St. Pauli, Germany) – had to miss the Black Stars’ trip to South Africa.
The 46-year-old gaffer is however unhappy with the situation and has questioned Fifa’s way of handling the COVID-19 pandemic issues.
“The whole issue has been a problem. Not just me but for any other coach," he told the press on Sunday.
“You have a plan, you know what you’re doing, but then you realize a player has COVID or issues. I don’t know if Fifa or Caf are handling this very well.
“One may ask if we cannot bring our players here [South Africa] can’t we play somewhere else?
“There are so many questions to answer and it’s not making us comfortable,” Akonnor bemoaned at Sunday’s pre-match press conference.
He added: “We are aware of the situation, we are well prepared. We knew that English players will not come here with us because of the COVID situation. We knew exactly what was going to happen so it’s not going to be a complaint,” he added.