Milovan Rajevac believes the Black Stars team with 17 debutants can perform well at the 2021 Africa Cup of Nations [AFCON] in Cameroon.

In the only preparatory game ahead of the tournament, Ghana lost 3-0 to African champions, Algeria in Doha.

The defeat left many Ghanaians questioning the quality of the team ahead of the tournament.

However, the Serbian trainer remains optimistic ahead of the competition which begins on Sunday, January 9, 2022.

“At the AFCON, we will have the ability to play against some of the big teams like Morocco and Gabon," the Serbian trainer as quoted by CAFonline.com.

"We have the opportunity to get to know the teams even better. But time is on our side for more matches, and we will do much better at the AFCON," he added.

Ghana has been drawn in Group C alongside Morocco, Gabon and the Comoros Island.

The four-time African champions will begin their AFCON campaign with a game against Morocco on Monday.

Milovan Rajevac, who is on a one-year renewable contract has been tasked by the Ghana Football Association [GFA] to steer the team to end the country's 40 years AFCON trophy drought.

The 63-year-old will pocket $300,000 should he win the trophy

The Ministry of Youth and Sports (MOYS) in its role to help curb the spread of Covid-19 has said the Ministry will not send supporters to the 33rd African Cup of Nations (AFCON) tournament set to take place in Cameroon on Sunday.

This announcement through a press statement signed by the ministry’s Public Relations Officer, Mr. Kenneth Annang.

The statement said the Ministry has put measures in place for individuals who would want to travel to watch the tournament on their own.

“Due to the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, the ministry is constrained in sending supporters to the tournament.”

“However, African Origin travel and tours has been authorized to facilitate travel for a limited number of Ghanaians who may seek to attend the games on their own.”

The Black Stars of Ghana in search of their fifth AFCON trophy would leave Qatar today to prepare for their first match against their Group C counterparts, Morocco on Monday.

The team after playing Morocco on Monday would play Gabon and Comoros in the subsequent days.

Six Ghanaians have been appointed by the Confederation of African Football ( CAF) to offer their services at the 2022 African Cup of Nations which kicks of in Cameroon on Sunday.

The GFA’s IT Director Francis Adu Essah will join CAF’s IT Experts for the competition due to  due to his excellent leadership and execution of the FIFA Connect system and Competition management system in Ghana.

Dr Prince Pambo has also been handed the role of a doping control officer during the tournament. The Ghanaian medical practitioner and former GFA medical Committee member is currently in Cameroon preparing to offer his services in the AFCON.

Other officials include Ibrahim Saanie Daara will be one of the Media Officers throughout the tournament. Mr Saanie who has a vast knowledge and many years of experience in the media work will be working with CAF during the AFCON as well.

Mr Kofi Addae who is also from Ghana is the Lead Editor(English) along with other editors for CAF during the AFCON. Mr Addae is a former Media Officer at CAF.

Member of the GFA executive council, Mr Frederick Acheampong will also be working in Cameroon as Assistant General Coordinator.  His tasks includes assisting in team arrangements, stadium and training field preparation, match day operations, media and spectator services and security.

Ghanaian Referee Daniel Laryea has been appointed to officiate in the Total energy African Cup of nations, Cameroon. Mr Laryea was selected based on his experience, skills, current form and having established himself as one of the best from the country. Daniel Laryea has handled a number of Africa Cup of Nation and World Cup qualifiers on the continent.

The AFCON will commence on January 9 to February 6, 2022. The Black stars are in Group C with Morocco, Gabon and Comoros. The Stars will open their campaign on Monday, January 10,2022 against Morocco.

Source GFA Communications

Algeria, Cameroon, Egypt And Senegal Named As Picks To Triumph At AFCON 2021

Host nation Cameroon (The Indomitable Lions) kick off the 33rd African Cup of Nations on Sunday, 9 January 2022 against the Stallions of Burkina Faso with the aim of reaching the final on February 6th, like the other favourites, Algeria, the defending champion or Senegal which still hopes for its first title.

According to experts of African Football, Algeria, Cameroon, Egypt And Senegal favourites to win AFCON. The African Cup of Nations is the biggest football tournament in Africa, and every qualified team wish to win for their nation.

Group A

The Indomitable Lions, and five-time champions who were recrowned in 2017, are the favorites in this group. They will have the advantage of playing in stadiums that are 80 percent full, as opposed to 60 percent for the other matches in the tournament. Cape Verde’s “Stopira” (Ianique dos Santos Tavares) and “Platini” (Luis Carlos Almada Soares) trail, as does Burkina Faso’s Bertrand Traoré. Coincidentally, the Blue Sharks of Cape Verde (quarter-finals) and the Stallions of Burkina Faso (final) both had their best performances in CAN-2013. Ethiopia, which was victorious in 1962 despite being in the midst of civil war, is no longer a tenor. This is only her third appearance in 40 years.

Group B

The Senegalese Teranga Lions and their golden squad (Édouard Mendy, Kalidou Koulibaly, Sadio Mane) arrive in Cameroon as heavy favourites, a little forced to win to quench an eternal thirst. The first round should not slow down Aliou Cissé’s men, who are better on paper than Guinea, who replaced Didier Six with Kaba Diawara a month before the tournament. Lyonnais Tino Kadewere’s Zimbabwe, without his two other stars, Marsall Munetsi (Reims) and Marvelous Nakamba (Aston Villa), is injured, and modest Malawi appears a notch below.

Group C

The Atlas Lions of Morocco led by Vahid Halilhodzic appears to be the best armed, with Parisian Achraf Hakimi and his Sevillian trio of goalkeeper Yassine Bounou and forwards Munir El Haddadi and Youssef En-Nesyri, but he is drawn in the first round’s densest group. The “Atlas Lions,” one of the favourites, will face Ghana, four-time winner of the CAN and still a contender. The Comoros, one of the two newcomers, will be one of the tournament’s highlights. The Panthers of Gabon, the last residents of Group C, have lost their bite following the positive tests of their stars Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Mario Lemina on Thursday. Not to write off the name of Zimbabwe.

Group D

Group D will begin with a ten-CAN shock between Nigeria (3 titles) and Egypt in Garoua, northern Cameroon (7 titles). The “Super Eagles,” who thanked their coach Gernot Rohr four weeks before the game, are missing Victor Osimhen, who was blocked by the Covid in Naples, but they remain a formidable force. The “Pharaohs” rely on Mohamed Salah, one of the best players in the world (Liverpool). Guinea-Bissau and Sudan, which both received Hervé Velud at the same time as Rohr, are vying for the role of hen’s outsider.

Group E

Group E, featuring the defending champion, Algeria’s Riyad Mahrez (Manchester City), are one of the favourites, the Ivory Coast’s Sébastien Haller, the Champions League’s top scorer. The third and final match will be between the “Greens” and the “Elephants.”

Sierra Leone can be a surprise in the group, likewise, Equatorial Guinea, which qualified after two CAN as organsers..

Group F

The Carthage Eagles of Tunisia and Mali’s Eagles are the tips in Group F, as they have high pedigree in Africn Football than Mauritania, who are making their second appearance, and Gambia, who are debutants.

Wahbi Khazri’s Tunisia was a semi-finalist three years ago and will be there. Mali also has a strong labor force with Hamari Traoré (Rennes) and Amadou Hadara (Leipzig). However, the powerful Moussa Marega, better known as Moussa Marega since 2019, prefers his club, Al-Hilal, in Saudi Arabia, much like Cheick Doucouré with Lens. However, those who are absent are always wrong, and almost all of Africa’s stars will be in Cameroon.

From Sammy Heywood Okine

SWAG adjudged Coach of the Year  (2021), Coach Ofori Asare has presented his award to the leadership of the National Sports Authority in Accra.

Present to receive him were the Director General, Prof Peter Twumasi, and his two deputies, Mr Majeed Bawa and Mr Kwame Amponfi Jnr .

Coach Asare, who is a staff of NSA, happened to be the only African Boxing Coach to win a medal at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, and first in the last 50 years to have won Olympic boxing medal for Ghana. Congratulations!!!

Assistant Trainer at the Charles Quartey Memorial Boxing Gym, Mr. Prince Asiedu is optimistic that they can turn out more African and world boxing champions in the near future.

In an exclusive interview during the birthday celebration of head trainer, Charles Quartey who chalked 50 years last Friday, the assistant coach said the gym has many plans for the youth living in and around Timber Market and its environs.

He observed that most of the youth are very intelligent, brave and courageous, whose talents must be polished to become stars.

He disclosed that they currently have seven professionals including Wahala Oluwaseun, the current WBO Africa Super Featherweight Champion, Joseph Akai Nettey, the current Royal Boxing Organization Light Flyweight Champion, Michael Ansah, the National Lightweight Champion, 25 amateur boxers and several juvenile boxers plus two female boxers.

He expressed that they started building the gym slowly, some 12 years ago and today they pride themselves as one of the best boxing Gyms in Accra.

He thanked all those who have supported them including Streetwise Foundation and the management of the boxers.

He gave great thanks to the Almighty for his protection and guidance as well as the knowledge and wisdom that they get to handle the boxers as some of them are stubborn.

He appealed to corporate bodies to support the Gyms and boxing in general, both amateur and professional.

He also appealed to the National Sports Authority and Ministry of Youth and Sports to encourage boxing as it is the only sport that has produced real champions for Ghana.

"We have to upgrade ourselves with courses but it is expensive, so we want the NSA and corporate Ghana to support us so that we would know the current trends in the game " he said.

By Sammy Heywood Okine

After a turbulent build-up, and still under a cloud of doubt, the Africa Cup of Nations finals gets underway in Cameroon on Sunday but with the tournament’s long-term future in doubt.

Africa’s support for Fifa president Gianni Infantino’s proposal to change the frequency of the World Cup to every two years threatens the Cup of Nations, which is already biennial.

Africa’s 54 member associations voted unanimously at last year’s congress to back the idea of a more frequent World Cup, but without discussing how it would affect their own tournament on a packed international calendar.

Now expanding to 24-teams, the Cup of Nations is proving to be a strain on resources.

This edition has been twice postponed, first in 2019 when the Confederation of African Football (CAF) found the country was not ready and took it to Egypt instead, and again last January because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Cameroon had been awarded the finals in 2014 and built new stadiums in Bafoussam, Douala, Limbe and Yaounde but works on the showpiece Olembe Stadium in Yaounde have continued right up to the start of the tournament, proving a major source of concern and contention.

So worried were CAF about the readiness of the venue, plus Cameroon’s general organisational preparedness, that they held an emergency meeting last month to discuss cancelling the tournament.

That was also motivated by the rapid spread of the Omicron variant of the novel coronavirus and the potential impact it might have on the event but in the end it was decided, amid much disagreement, to go ahead.

The timing of the tournament, in the middle of the club season in Europe where the majority of African internationals play, drew the ire of clubs who also sought its cancellation.

They were concerned as well about possible quarantine for players returning from Africa to Europe once their participation at the finals was complete, which would extend the time they were away from the clubs.

Managers like Liverpool’s Jurgen Klopp - who has lost Mo Salah, Sadio Mane and Naby Keita - have been irritated by the fact they have to give up key players at a crucial juncture of their season.

The Cup of Nations is being played in January because of the heavy mid-year rainy season in Cameroon but will revert back to a June-July slot when Ivory Coast host the next finals in 2023.

The 2025 finals have been awarded to Guinea, but CAF will discuss this week whether the country is able to host the tournament.

By Reuters

Mauricio Sulaiman says the WBC will work with the IBA (the new name for AIBA) to ensure boxing has a future in the Olympic Games.

The WBC president has been a long critic of the amateur code’s crisis-hit governing body, but he believes it is most important for all people in the sport to work together to ensure that.

“This is a time for the world of boxing to unite, because the basis of boxing is amateur boxing,” Sulaiman said. “It is the basis for everything.”

AIBA was stripped of the right to stage the boxing competition at the Olympics in Tokyo after a string of controversies that came to a head at the Rio Olympics in 2016, with allegations of corruption and fight-fixing.

The International Olympic Committee set up a task force to run the competition and qualifying for Tokyo, which largely passed off without controversy. Under new president Umar Kremlev, the renamed IBA is looking to put its problems in the past, having tasked Richard McLaren, who uncovered the Russian doping scandal, with investigating AIBA corruption. Among his revelations was a system of corruption among judges and referees to fix fights.

Boxing will no longer be one of the core Olympic sports from 2028, when the Games return to Los Angeles for the third time. This means it will be down to the winning city’s organizing committee to decide whether boxing will be included or not. On the plus side for boxing, it remains one of the Olympics’ few truly global sports, while it is relatively cheap to stage, with no special venues needing to be constructed, although the history of corruption will put many off.

Sulaiman had been a huge critic of the previous AIBA regime, under president CK Wu, largely by move to involve professional boxers, something that the new IBA are yet to move away from. But the WBC president feels that boxing remaining in the Olympic Games remains vital.

“Professional boxing comes from Olympic boxing and amateur boxing, so we as an industry must not turn away,” Sulaiman said. “We need to face this issue head on and get to work. Whether you are a journalist, a promoter, a manager, a trainer or a fighter, we can’t just stand by and see what destiny brings.

“We have had communications with AIBA and we have tried to have communication with the International Olympic Committee. At the moment, the ICO continues to reject AIBA to run boxing for the IOC. It is a matter of great concern.

“We have continued to work with USA Boxing, with Canada Boxing and several countries that run boxing in their countries. We have run tournaments and have had activities in Spain, in Nicaragua, in Uruguay, we want to put a task force together to address now it has been made public that boxing is out for 2028. 

“The level we saw at the last Olympics was not prime, but there is so much talent worldwide. 

“We are open to support anything [that keeps boxing in the Olympics]. The WBC is involved in professional boxing, but we establish a committee for amateur boxing many years ago after the horrible actions that AIBA took to try and bring professionals into the Olympic Games only for money and numbers. 

“Boxing is a great sport. It had the fourth ranking of all sports in the last Olympics for ratings. We have to get active to protect boxing.”

Ron Lewis is a senior writer for BoxingScene. He was Boxing Correspondent for The Times, where he worked from 2001-2019 - covering four Olympic Games and numerous world title fights across the globe. He has written about boxing for a wide variety of publications worldwide since the 1980s.

By Ron Lewis / BoxingScene

Mr. Emmanuel Olla Williams, CEO of Dreamland Sports Plus, one of the best sporting events organisers is rallying support for the Black Stars of Ghana to do well at the 2021 African Cup of Nations in Cameroun.

According to him, though the team is not performing as expected by Ghanaians, any thing can happen in football, and the Ghana FA is experienced enough to manage things for Ghana to come out of the Group Stage and move on.

He was not impressed with the forwards and their attitude towards goal scoring, as none of the current strikers comes close to his idol, Asamoah Gyan aka Baby Jet, who will be on the Super Sport Panel to discuss the Championship.

The Youth Coordinator of the Ghana Olympic Committee (GOC) urged the local youngsters in the Black Stars to back up, especially Maxwell Abbey Quaye and  Abdul Fatawu Issahaku who have proved to be the unsung stars who can save Ghana.

“Football is about goals, and all we want are the goals. If the Black Stars are scoring certainly Ghanaians will support them. We need goals to win” he told Yours Truly.

Patriotic Williams who is also Chief Executive of One-On-One Foundation advised the defenders to communicate, while charging to goal keepers to be alert and agile.

The Black Stars who lost 3-0 in a warm up match against title holders, Algeria meets Morocco on Monday.

By Sammy Heywood Okine

The Streetwise Foundation and former IBF Lightweight champion Richard Commey on Friday presented boxing equipment to the Charles Quartey Memorial Boxing Gym located at Timber Market in Accra.

The items included gloves, bandages, head gears, tee shirts, caps, skipping ropes, sweat shirts, boots, training shoes and others.

The day which coincided with the 50th birthday of National juvenile coach Charles Quartey was celebrated in style and smiles as he expressed joy and gratitude in the presentation to support boxers in the community which has a lot of young guys.

Mr. Michael Amoo Bediako, Manager of Richard Commey who is also CEO of the Streetwise Foundation said he is a Ghanaian and believes the people of Ghana have what it takes to be world champions, but the gyms lack equipment so they decided to start from Charles Quartey to support boxing clubs and gyms in Ghana.

Richard Commey who recently lost in a big fight against Ukrainian Vasily Lomachenko in the United States urged boxers in Ghana keep their dreams up and train hard to become world champions.

Present at the event was Wahab Oluwaseun, the current WBO Africa Super Featherweight Champion and Mr. Isaac Amankwaah of Ace Power Promotions.

The Charles Quartey Gym has also produced Joseph Akai Nettey, the current Royal Boxing Organization RBO Light Flyweight Champion.

By Sammy Heywood Okine