While Zambia National Team coach Avram Grant is unhappy that his next World Cup qualifier opponent, Niger, will play their home games in Morocco, Bafana Bafana coach Hugo Broos believes that African countries whose stadiums do not meet CAF’s minimum requirements should be banned from taking part in the qualifiers.
CAF banned 17 countries from playing home games in the ongoing 2026 FIFA World Cup qualifiers, including Lesotho, Zimbabwe, and Niger.
Grant said Niger should have found a different venue instead of Morocco, which is also in Group E, labeling it unfair competition.
“Niger chose Morocco as their home, which I think is wrong from CAF and FIFA because it’s giving Morocco an advantage. Niger was supposed to choose a country that is outside our group,” Grant complained.
BolaNews understands that FAZ wrote to FIFA over the same but did not get any response.
Morocco will be the only team that will play five games at home in Group E.
Broos wants countries without stadiums to be banned
Meanwhile, Broos has also said the best way to solve the issue of teams playing home games away from home would be to ban countries from qualifiers if they can’t meet the required standards after a certain period, which would speed up the process of fixing home venues.
“This one thing I don’t understand in African football is that home games are not home games,” said Broos.
“I think Zimbabwe will play their home games in South Africa, so we have a little advantage for that game.
“So, what I saw in the past, for example, Liberia played their home game in Morocco. I’m very sorry but this is not correct. I think CAF must do something about this.
“I know it is not easy for those countries to have appropriate stadiums because it is something about money, but you can easily say, ‘in five years, if you don’t have a stadium, then you don’t play CAF games anymore; you don’t play AFCON qualifiers and that of the World Cup,” Broos was quoted as saying by Idisk Times.
South Africa will take on Rwanda this evening in their second Group C match. Zambia, on the other hand, will face Niger in Marrakesh as they look to set the pace in Group E.
Both teams are coming off 2-1 and 4-2 home victories over Benin and Congo Brazzaville, respectively.
