Kurt Okraku, president of the Ghana Football Association (GFA), said that any football association may be proud of their ability to qualify for the FIFA World Cup.
According to Kurt Okraku, unlike prior FIFA-hosted competitions, world cup qualification provides the nation greater respect and worldwide prestige.
The GFA boss, at the congress held on Tuesday, August 30, 2022, said “This is the biggest achievement any member association can talk about. You can qualify for the u15, u17, u23 and the women but if you are absent at the Mundial believe me, you are nothing.”
“We shouldn’t take it for granted that we’ve qualified because this marks the beginning of a new era for Ghanaian football.
“When you qualify for the world cup, you are treated differently, for my colleagues who have been to Qatar, you’ve had a feel of it and you belong to the big boys,” he added.
He claimed that a number of factors contributed to Ghana’s failure to earn a spot in the 2018 World Cup, including the Anas documentary, which hindered the growth of football in the nation.
He said, “2018 we were absent, then we had problems with Anas video, then everybody started to forget about Ghana but Ghana is a superpower in football at least in Africa and we deserve to be there and we made it.”
Ghana defeated Nigeria in the playoffs to earn a spot in Qatar’s 2022 FIFA World Cup.
The world cup, which starts in November, will feature matches between the Black Stars and Uruguay, South Korea, and Portugal.