We want to play Ghana in South Africa to cut cost – Ethiopia FA

The Ethiopia FA has argued that it wants to host Ghana in South Africa for its 2022 FIFA World Cup qualifying match this month because it wants to cut down costs.

This is according to Mr. Bahiru Tilahun who is the general secretary of the Ethiopia Football Association

As has been reported by footballghana.com, Ethiopia has selected the Orlando Stadium in Johannesburg, as the venue for its clash against Ghana on November 11.

Earlier, the Ghanaian media had raised concern with the allegation that the Ethiopia FA only took the decision because it knows the Black Stars struggled in their last trip to South Africa.

However, according to Mr. Bahiru Tilahun, the motive behind the decision is to cut down on cost.

“As everybody is aware of it about our national team not to play at Bahir Dar Stadium because of the ban from CAF due to the failure to feature the requirements of the club licensing board so we were forced to choose another stadium and as we know our next match after Ghana we gonna play in Harare, Zimbabwe so we decided to choose Harare Stadium to host Ghana because as a result playing both matches in Zimbabwe but their stadium is also banned by CAF so we picked a second option to South Africa and the South African FA is already corporative to host us there, that’s why we decided to play there,” the general secretary of the Ethiopia FA said.

He added, “The main reason behind this is the finance issue, we gonna minimize our expense when we play in South Africa because we can use one route to South Africa and then to Harare but if we play in Kenya we will go to Kenya and get back to Ethiopia and again Ethiopia to Harare so the main reason is the finance issue.”

Ghana head coach Milovan Rajevac is expected to name his squad for the clash against Ethiopia by the close of this week.