Black Starlets of Ghana head coach Karim Zito has expressed his unhappiness about CAF's new qualifying format for the Africa Junior Championships which will be held in Tanzania next year.
Ghana lost to arch-rivals Nigeria on penalties in the finals of the tournament in Niger on Saturday.
The defeat means Nigeria have qualified to next year’s U-17 Africa Cup tournament at the expense of Ghana.
CAF has earlier this year changed the mode of qualification to the Africa Junior Championships from and all-play-all qualifiers into zonal tournaments.
In this new format, only the winners of the zonal tournaments will be joining hosts Tanzania and defending champions Mali at the Africa Cup finals.
This new format has in particular restricted the number of teams, particularly West African teams who have dominated the youth tournaments both at continental and the world stage.
Coach Zito has echoed his sentiment and believes the new format will hold youth development.
“West Africa is holding Africa now in terms of youth development,” he said.
“Now there is no Niger, there is no Ghana, there is no Côte d’Ivoire.
“It means now, Africa has opted for quantity and not quality so they should look into this mode. It is not the best.
“Because when you go to the World Cup, it is Africa. So they should go back and look at the mode of qualification. It is not the right thing.”