Mustapha Ussif
Minister for Youth and Sports, Mustapha Ussif says Ghana’s preparations towards Qatar 2022 World Cup is progressing along a designed strategy to ensure utmost performance.
According to him, through the Ministry of Youth and Sports, the government is providing the needed resourcefulness and facilitation across relevant areas incorporating the technical team, playing body, organised support and the backing of the entire nation towards achieving a memorable participation and performance.
“The FIFA World Cup, Qatar 2022 is expected to be the biggest football festival in history since 1930,” he told Parliament last Friday.
He added that this edition of the ‘premier’ football competition, which is being hosted by a country from the Middle East for the first time, would be opened on November 20 and conclude on December 18, 2022.
The Black Stars will play against Portugal in Group H, four days after the kickoff, and Uruguay and South Korea are the other group opponents the Black Stars will compete with for a place in the Round of 16.
The minister disclosed that the Qatar 2022 World Cup will be Ghana’s fourth appearance in the global showpiece. Ghana’s first appearance was in Germany 2006, where the Black Stars impressively reached the Round of 16 stage following defeat to five-time champions, Brazil.
The Black Stars appeared consecutively in South Africa 2010 and Brazil 2014 before failing to reach Russia 2018.
For the minister, a return to the global football arena affords Ghana the opportunity to showcase the nation, culture and football to the rest of the world, and to better the country’s highest performance of a quarter final finish in South Africa 12 years ago.
Ghana qualified for Qatar 2022 after beating rivals Nigeria in a two legged playoff in March 2022, and is now one of the 32 nations to successfully qualify for the competition.
“This achievement cannot be overlooked due to the failure of more illustrious nations to reach the mundial. Four-time winners and reigning European champion, Italy and several other high profile nations failed to qualify,” Mr. Ussif stated.
He said achieving qualification in itself is a big motivation and with enhanced resourcefulness towards preparation, noting, “We are confident of performing optimally in Qatar.”
“Our target is to better our performance at South Africa 2010, which remains Africa’s best outing in FIFA World Cup history,” he asserted, and added that specifically, the Black Stars team has realistically targeted to qualify from Group H to the Round of 16, which includes Portugal, Uruguay and South Korea.
He said the team is also poised to progress through the knockout stages, intimating, “the Government, through the Ministry for Youth and Sports has been working with the GFA as part of our preparations to achieve our targets in Qatar.”
By Ernest Kofi Adu, Parliament House