The South African Football Association (SAFA) is pulling out all the stops to ensure that Bafana Bafana are prepared ahead of time to smoothen their trip to Liberia in March.
SAFA have tasked Bafana team manager Vincent Tseka to go to Liberia to oversee the state of the stadium that will be used for the Africa Cup of Nations qualifying match in Monrovia in March.
SAFA, who held a press conference at the association’s base in Nasrec last weekend to speak openly about a variety of things, confirmed that the game will be played in Liberia and not in Morocco.
The venue that will host the game will be Samuel Kanyon Doe Stadium in Monrovia on 28 March after CAF approved the venue when it was initially not approved.
Liberia was barred by CAF from playing home matches, but wrote to CAF that, since they can’t play home matches, they wanted to play in Morocco.
SAFA CEO Tebogo Motlanthe then wrote to CAF, insisting that Liberia should not be allowed to play home matches in Morocco, as they share the same group with them, giving the Atlas Lions all the advantage.
CAF still allowed Liberia to play Morocco in Morocco, losing 2-0 in the opening Group K match, in a game played on 13 May at Complexe Mohamed V Stadium in Casablanca.
However, Liberia has quickly patched up their own venue to host the AFCON qualifying matches and CAF has approved it. Bafana will first host Liberia on 20 March and the venue has yet to be confirmed.
If Liberia were granted their request, that would have meant that it was going to be the second time Morocco would host home qualifying matches of their group rivals as it was the case during the 2022 World Cup qualifiers when Sudan and Guinea took all their World Cup qualifiers to be played in Rabat, while Guinea Bissau played theirs in Casablanca.
It is something Morocco gladly accepted as they won all six group stage matches in the World Cup qualifiers, before overcoming DR Congo in the two-legged playoffs in March last year to book their spot in World Cup finals.
In the World Cup finals, Morocco made history, becoming the first African nation to reach the World Cup semi-final, losing to France.
Bafana and Liberia have met twice before, with Mzansi winning once (2-1) and drawing the other (1-1) in 2000 for the 2002 AFCON finals. Liberia’s great George Weah, who is now the country’s president, was the coach then.
