AFCON: Comparison of expenses to actual Prize money in Ghana’s last 5 AFCON competitions
African Cup of Nation (AFCON) comparison of expenses to actual Prize money in Ghana’s last 5 AFCON competitions.
The AFCON breakdown
Over the last five (2012, 2013, 2015, 2016, 2019) editions of the AFCON, fans have been left disappointed by the finishes of the senior national team.
Since 2011, Ghana was only able to make the final of the competition on one occasion (2015), eventually losing on penalties to Ivory Coast. It is the only medal the team has received from the competition in the last nine years.
Yet, the nation managed to spend over $25 million more than the amount CAF have dished out to winners of the competition from the 2012 edition.
In the 2012, 2013, and 2015 editions, the prize money for the winners of the showcase was $1.5 million each. Ghana managed to spend about $8 million in 2012, $15 million in 2013, and $8 million in 2015 according to Ghanaweb. This means there was a $26.5 million gap between the nation’s spend and CAF’s spend for AFCON victors during that timeline.
2017 witnessed an increase of prize money for the AFCON winner to $4 million whilst Ghana spent $3.37 million that year, a surprisingly lower spend.
In the following edition however, amid huge speculation around the budgeted amount, former Minister of Youth and Sports, Isaac Asiamah, revealed that Ghana spent about $4.56 million to end the drought. An amount of $4.5 million was set aside by CAF for the 2019 AFCON winner which eventually turned out to be Algeria. The gain for the 2017 edition is about $0.57 million.
Knowing that Ghana have failed to win the AFCON since 1982, the spending gap in actual sense, is steeper than the above.
In the 2012 and 2013 editions, the four-time AFCON winners earned just $750,000 for each edition by virtue of their fourth-place finishes.
Two years later, Ghana earned $1 million for placing second. In the two editions that followed, they earned $1.5 million and $600,000 for a fourth and round of 16 finishes respectively.
Using their actual positions as the benchmark, Ghana have spent about $33.86 million more than what they actually earned from the AFCON since 2011. Huge investments have been made but the trophy is yet to be held.
According to Mustapha Ussif on Citi TV, about $700,000 is spent on each World Cup qualifiers match.
“Out of the $25 million, if we have to play in the AFCON, we have to prepare. And we need to play two friendly games. And besides that, the World Cup qualifiers that we have to play, we will not spend less than $700,000 on each match.”
If this same template is taken to the AFCON, the team will be expected to spend $6,300,000 or more which is broken down into two friendlies and seven AFCON 2021 matches if the nation eventually wins it all.
Credit: JoySports
