West Africa: Burkina Faso has declared to soon begin with hosting international games once again. After they meet with the CAF standards the nation is planning to welcome sports tournaments and more.
Reportedly, Burkina Faso was banned from hosting the international games, in 2021. Back then, the African Football Confederation under the guidance of then new president Patrice Motsepe banned 20 of its 54 member countries from using their stadiums to host international games. As they were not eligible and met the minimum requirements in a move that potentially threw the World Cup qualifiers into disarray.
Due to this decision, eight of the countries whose stadium accreditations were revoked by the Confederation of African Football (CAF). This decision involved countries such as Senegal and Mali.
Other teams in the World Cup qualifying to have their stadiums banned are Burkina Faso, Niger, Central African Republic, Liberia, Malawi and Namibia.
President of Burkina Faso – Ibrahim Traore renovated the August 4th Stadium in Ouagadougou to fix the issue. Renovation of the stadium began two years ago in 2023.
Some of the other reasons given by CAF for the stripping of stadium accreditations includes substandard fields, poor and inadequate dugout areas for team officials and the lack of fixed seating bleachers for fans.
Considering this decision CAF informed the countries with stadium bans that a South African mining billionaire Motsepe, who owns Pretoria based club Mamelodi Sundowns was elected unopposed as the new head of African soccer with the support of FIFA president Gianni Infantino. One of his promises was to improve the soccer infrastructure of the continent.
Burkina Faso is a land-locked country situated in West Africa and surrounded by the borders of Mali to its northwest, Niger to the northeast, Benin to the southeast, Togo and Ghana to the south and Ivory Coast to the southwest.
The nation covers an area of 274,223 kmsq. In year 2024, the country has recorded an estimated population of around 23,286,000 people.