CAF Should Ban Countries Like Zimbabwe From World Cup Qualifiers, Says Bafana Bafana Coach
South African national football team coach Hugo Broos said that the Confederation of African Football (CAF) should ban countries that do not have home venues that meet CAF’s minimum requirements.
CAF has banned about 17 nations from playing home games in the ongoing 2026 FIFA World Cup qualifiers because their stadiums are not up to standard.
Zimbabwe and Lesotho, both in Group C together with South Africa, Benin, Rwanda and Nigeria, played their home matches away.
The Warriors hosted Nigeria on Sunday at Rwanda’s Huye Stadium in Butare, with the match ending 1-1.
Lesotho, who also held Nigeria in their first game in the qualifiers, will be hosting Benin at the Moses Mabhida Stadium in South Africa on Tuesday.
IDiski Times reported Broos as saying CAF should ban countries like Zimbabwe from qualifiers to force them to expedite the fixing of home venues. 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 won’t play CAF games anymore, you don’t play AFCON qualifiers and that of the World Cup”.
But if you say nothing and those things happen, then the competition is not 100% correct anymore.
It is not up to us, but it is the guys up there who have decided this and I hope one day they will decide by putting a period to say, “Okay, if you have not decided on the stadium that you need to have, I’m very sorry, you had those three or four or five years, finished, no qualifiers anymore – no for World Cup or AFCON’. Maybe then, they will do something.”
You saw what happened in Liberia [in March against Bafana], suddenly, they felt that they had a chance to qualify and suddenly there was a stadium.
At the beginning of the competition, there was no stadium, because they played their games in Morocco.
You see the pressure is there that they can do it. I hope one day CAF can decide that “Look guys, that is that, but it is up to you’.”
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