AFCON 2024: The $7m chase; Can Black Stars grab prize?

Starting January 13, at the Alassane Ouattara Stadium, Abidjan, Cote D’Ivoire, the continent’s most popular sporting tournament, the African Cup of Nations (AFCON) will begin in earnest. 

Twenty-four national teams including Ghana’s Black Stars will be chasing their fifth continental title in more than four decades, in addition to the $7 million prize if they can win the cup. 

The cash at hand is the highest prize money in the tournament’s history. 

The Confederation of African Football (CAF), organisers of the competition, increased the prize monies for its flagship tournament from the preliminary stages to the final by forty per cent.

It must be stated, however, that at the 2021 AFCON in which the Black Stars exited at the prelims, the Ministry for Youth and Sports budgeted $25 million, which included Ghana’s World Cup qualifying campaign for the 2022 Qatar World Cup.

Meanwhile, the Ministry is yet to provide the budget for the Black Stars AFCON campaign but it is expected to be higher than the prize money allocated for the winner of the tournament, that is if the Stars are lucky enough to annex.

In the past decade, it is estimated that the government has spent nearly a staggering $70m on the Black Stars and football alone, obviously at the expense of other sporting disciplines. However, nothing or very little has been achieved in terms of laurels. 

The Stars’ fate in Cote D’Ivoire Soccer connoisseurs have countered the Black Stars out of winning this year’s AFCON.

In fact, former national star Mohammed Polo omitted the Stars from his list of the top six teams that can win the Mundial. Another legendary Ghanaian coach, J. E. Sarpong, has told Ghanaians to lower their expectation of the Black Stars in the upcoming tournament.

Interestingly, two former managers of the Black Stars, Otto Addo and Kwesi Appiah, have cautiously reposed confidence in the Black Stars to perform creditably well at the tournament.

Away from these comments from connoisseurs of the game, Ghana’s last showing at the AFCON saw a humiliating first-round exit after lowly Comoros booted the Stars out with a 3-2 victory.

After over four decades of asking, coach Chris Hughton has assembled a 27-member team to bring the cup home. 

Anchoring the squad is in-form winger Mohammed Kudus who plies his trade for England-based West Ham United. Kudus’ task has been made more arduous, considering the fact that he is a powerful midfielder 

Thomas Partey is out injured. If news of Kudus’ supposed injury being parroted by his club in recent times forces him to drop out, then the team will be left without a star man. 

The Ayew brothers and striker Inaki Williams, who is yet to make his presence well felt in the Stars squad, may offer some hope, albeit not enough. 

Coach Hughton’s task has been cut out. He must form a crack squad that plays more like a team rather than relying on individual brilliance. 

It is going to be dicey and cagey for the Black Stars in Yamoussoukro. The question of whether they can grab the $7 million prize money remains unanswered.