Guinea national team coach Paulo Duarte has criticised CAF for the 2027 AFCON qualifiers group D draw saying he feels it’s unfair.
Duarte’s sentiments follow his side’s 2-1 defeat to South Africa on the opening day of the PAMOJA tournament qualifiers in Orlando as his side now occupy bottom spot with no points in the group.
The group also consist of event co-hosts Kenya and fellow East African side Eritrea. And by virtue of Kenya being a co-host they have qualified for AFCON leaving the other three to fight off for the one last qualifying spot in the pool.
The National Elephants last qualified for the continental showpiece in the 2023 edition in Ivory Coast where they exited at the quarter-final stage.
After the loss to Bafana Bafana, Duarte was asked about who he felt will emerge to join Kenya at the finals and he said the draw was unfair, however, Guinea will do everything in their power to compete and qualify.
“It’s an open group first of all,” said Duarte.
“And I don’t understand how the draw was made when you look at the draw actually with the team of Kenya, Eritrea and South Africa I don’t think it’s fair in terms of the draw.”
“But we have more games to play and the away game coming and the game at home as well we will do everything to actually get a result. But I feel the way that the draw was made by CAF is not right, it’s not fair.“
“Our objective is to qualify for the AFCON. There’s different options in terms of going through the qualification. And obviously today we lost the game which is already scratched but we are going to put everything on our side to actually win the remaining games. But we want to win the remaining games so we can advance to the qualification of the AFCON.”