World Cup 2022: Ghana's president vows to fly country's supporters to Qatar
Ghana's president has promised to fly supporters of the country's football team to the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
According to the website Football Ghana, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo made the comments after a meeting with the chief executive of the Kenpong Group of Companies, whose Kenpong Travel and Tours are the official transport for Ghanaian fans to Qatar.
Addo has previously suggested Ghana could be the first African country to win the prestigious tournament which begins next month.
“I am of the firm conviction that Ghana will not only participate in the competition but will make the whole nation and by extension the African continent proud, with a great performance," he said last month.
Addo's pledge stands in contrast to a number of other nations and organisations who have announced various forms of boycott of the international competition.
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The Danish sportswear company Hummel said last week it had toned down the details on Denmark's football jerseys and also released a black kit in protest against the conditions of migrant workers in Qatar.
Denmark's players will also travel to the tournament without their families, local media reported on Tuesday, after the Danish Football Association (DBU) said it wanted to minimise activity in Qatar as a protest against the country's human rights record.
"We don't want to contribute to creating profit for Qatar," DBU communications manager Jakob Hoyer told newspaper Ekstra Bladet.
"Therefore, we have throttled down as much as possible on our travel activities."
Qatar's World Cup organisers, the Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy (SC), said it disputed Hummel's claim that "the tournament has cost thousands of people their lives".
"We whole-heartedly reject the trivialising of our genuine commitment to protect the health and safety of the 30,000 workers who built Fifa World Cup stadiums and other tournament projects.
"That same commitment now extends to 150,000 workers across various tournament services and 40,000 workers in the hospitality sector."
'A bit late'
On Tuesday, Paris joined several other French cities in a boycott of screening matches of the World Cup in public places in protest against human rights conditions in Qatar, as well as environmental abuses.
Former French international football star Eric Cantona is also boycotting the tournament.
Paris's protest comes at a time when the French capital has seen billions of dollars of Qatari investment.
Paris Saint-Germain, the country's top club, has Qatari owners, while France has also agreed to provide security services to Qatar during the World Cup.
Meanwhile, Qatar is the fourth-largest recipient of French foreign direct investment, according to a study by Qadran, a Qatari-French business circle.
Laurent Bodin, an opinion writer for L'Alsace newspaper, said that while the call for a boycott was legitimate, it was "a bit late".
"Such behaviour cannot be selective," he said. "Those calling for screens to be turned off during the World Cup should stop following the news of Paris Saint-Germain, which is financed by Qatar, and many other clubs for which the state-owned airline, Qatar Airways, is a major sponsor."
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