SOUTH Africa’s Bafana Bafana Coach Hugo Broos has suggested to the Confederation of African Football (CAF) to ban all the countries that play their home matches away from home. This includes Eswatini who are hosting all their category A matches especially those for the Senior National team, Sihlangu outside the country, mainly at Mbombela Stadium, South Africa.
This comes after CAF and the Federation International Football Association (FIFA) banned about 17 nations from playing home games in the ongoing 2026 FIFA World Cup qualifiers, with Eswatini included.
Broos said South Africa has been affected too as they will play their Lesotho and Zimbabwe matches in neutral venues as both teams were also banned due to poor playing facilities.
Sihlangu was playing their second home match away from home against Cape Verde on Tuesday.
Broos says it cannot continue that African countries play their home games outside their borders because their home venues don’t meet CAF’s minimum requirements.
According to www.idiskitimes.co.za, Broos said the best way to solve this issue would be to ban nations from qualifiers if they cannot meet the required standards after a certain period, which would speed up the process of fixing home venues.
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FIFA and CAF banned Eswatini from playing the home Category A matches at Mavuso Sports Centre and Somhlolo National Stadium as both venues failed to meet the requirements. “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,†he said.
