Uneven split holding back Africa

MBABANE – Former Zambia coach Patrice Beaumelle believes Africa should have more teams in the FIFA World Cup.

Information sourced from The COSAFA Show, the coach said the only way to take national teams on the continent to the next level was to have them play regularly at the global showpiece.

The continent will be represented by five national teams from their 54 member associations (MAs) in Qatar next year, while Europe, which has 55 Mas, will have 13 slots, almost triple the number of Africa’s slots.

The Ivory Coast coach said this uneven split was holding back the African continent, with the likes of South America to also have as many as five slots despite having only 10 members.

Europe

“Africa has good football and good players and I feel like sometimes Europe underrates African football,” Beaumelle said.

“I would like to pass a message to FIFA to say we don’t respect African football, when out of 54 federations in Africa, five can qualify for the World Cup. It is not even 10 per cent,” he said.

Beaumelle wondered as to how can the African continent could be represented if it does not have one team in each group.

He went on to say that Europe have a team almost in all the groups. He also said sometimes a group would have two European teams at the world showpiece.

Poor

No African team had reached the semifinals at the world biggest football stage. It was a poor showing from the five representatives in 2018; the teams were eliminated in the first round.

Beaumelle said this will continue as long as African teams have limited exposure to the global showpiece competition. The African continent was represented by Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Nigeria and Senegal in the 2018 World Cup in Russia.

Ghana came close to the semifinals in 2010, South Africa and Algeria in 2014.