Ghana Protest Decision for Nigeria to Have 60,000 Fans in Abuja For World Cup Play-off Second Leg

From Ogundele Olanrewaju

The Ghana Football Association (GFA) have lodged a complain against the permission granted to Nigeria by CAF to have 60,000 fans at the Moshood Abiola Stadium in Abuja.

Nigeria will officially have 20,000 more fans than what Ghana had at the Baba Yara stadium in Kumasi on Friday in the first leg which ended 0-0.

According to a source at the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), the GFA want CAF to stick to the initial idea of having 30,000 fans at the stadium and also not allow plans by Nigeria to throw the gates open.

In their complain, they said crowd control is a big issue in Africa and most times a 60,000 capacity stadium will sit around 80,000 in reality. Hence the need to make sure Nigeria don’t have that number.

They claim their is the possibility of a stampede occuring if the decision to grant Nigeria that high number of spectators is allowed to stand. CAF has communicated to the NFF for modalities for crowd control.

CAF will by tomorrow either approve the protest by Ghana or throw it out. For now it’s looking highly unlikely as the NFF claim they have order for almost 50,000 tickets already.