Caf Medical Committee member Dr Prince Pambo has called on the Ghana Football Association (GFA) to fast-track coronavirus testing for its three national teams who are set to regroup for upcoming international assignments.
On special permission from Ghana president Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, the national U17 male and women teams, as well as the women’s U20 outfit, are expected to resume camp.
The three outfits ought to have begun their training programme on August 1, per their original plans.
“I will plead with the Ministry of Youth and Sports and the Ghana Football Association on the Covid-19 testing for the national team players,” Pambo told Happy FM.
“If they go for the normal one which is for free, the handicap with that one is that the results take long to come out.
“So the Ministry and the Covid-19 team should cooperate so they do a test which will see the results come out early.
“The test should be out by 43 hours, which will help the players to begin camping. If the test results are not out the players cannot be in camp.”
All contact sports, including football, are currently suspended in Ghana since the nation recorded its first cases of coronavirus in March.
The ban led to the premature termination of the 2019-20 domestic football season in June, after three months of waiting for a possible return.
Meanwhile, the GFA has organised a training workshop for technical team members of the national sides ahead of their imminent training resumption.
“As all and sundry are clamouring for the return of football, there will be the need to be in a good position to protect ourselves and that of our brothers and sisters,” FA boss Kurt Edwin Simeon Okraku said at Wednesday’s programme.
“Hopefully it will start with the girls and the boys will join and hopefully we will have the fully domestic league coming back to us.”
Ghana are set to face off with archrivals Nigeria in a 2021 Fifa U17 Women’s World Cup qualifier in October and November. The U20 women’s team have a World Cup qualifying date with Guinea-Bissau in September while the male U17 fold is looking forward to the upcoming Wafu Cup.
