Ghana’s amputee players who participated in the 2021 Africa Amputee Cup of Nations held in Tanzania are calling for help as they are currently stranded.
The Black Challengers defeated Liberia 3-2 on Saturday 4th December 2021 to emerge champions of the competition but unfortunately as every team is leaving after the tournament, the Ghanaians are still at the game’s village due to lack of return tickets.
The Black Challengers contingent in Tanzania are only nine including eight players and one coach as a lot of local players failed to secure tickets due to financial constraints.
The players who play professional football in Turkey bought their own tickets for the competition since there are internal wrangling among the leaderships of the Amputee Football Association of Ghana.
They are now calling on Ghanaians and the president of Ghana Nana Addo Dankwah Akufo-Addo to come to their aid through the Youth and Sports minister.
Ghana began the tournament with a 3-0 thumping of North African giants Egypt, before they also thrashed Nigeria 4-0 in the quarterfinals.
Ghana defeated Angola 3-1 in the semifinals to set up a date with Liberia in the final at the Benjamin Mkapa Sports Stadium. After a slow start in the final day, Ghana doubled their efforts to narrowly pip Liberia 3-2 to lift the trophy.
Kenya on the other hand finished in 6th place after losing to a solitary goal in the extra time of the game against Morocco after a 0-0 stalemate. Kenya emerged as the better side, hitting the woodwork 4 times and forcing the Moroccan goalkeeper to make super saves.
“We have missed several chances. We hit the post like 10 times. They (Morocco) got one chance and used it,” moaned Kenya’s Team Manager Hashim Kamau. Kenya’s captain Dalmas Otieno said their loss was due to blunt attack, poor defending and goalkeeping.
These weaknesses he said can only be corrected if there is a local league for Kenya’s amputee footballers.
“If we have a league then our players will have the endurance they need to play for an hour. Their confidence and ball handling will improve,” said Otieno. “We only assembled the team a few weeks before the competition. That cannot be enough for a team to perform well on such a big stage.”
Thanks to the victory, Morocco joined world champions Angola, Ghana, Tanzania and Liberia in sealing tickets to the World Cup, which will be staged in Turkey.
While only four slots had been reserved for Africa in the global championships, room for one more team to qualify for the global championships presented itself when Angola progressed to the semi-finals. Kenya were eying a third appearance in the global championships after featuring in 2014 and 2018 in Mexico. In the 2014 edition, Kenya finished 12th while in the 2018 event, they emerged ninth.