Legendary Germany striker Miroslav Klose says an African country will win the FIFA World Cup if the continent has more slots like their European counterparts.
Africa are allocated five out of the 32 slots while Europe and South America have 13 and 5 slots respectively.
Five European countries (England, France, Germany, Italy, Spain) and three from South America (Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay) have all tasted glory on football’s biggest stage. The farthest African teams have been at the World Cup is the quarter-final (Cameroon, Senegal, Ghana).
Co-host of the 2002 World Cup South Korea is the only Asian country that has gotten to the semi-final. Klose who is the world Cup all time leading goalscorer with 16 goals posited that the five slots allocated to Africa limits the continent’s chances of winning it.
“There is no way Africa can win the World cup, unless FIFA brings balance to the number of teams that qualifies to the World cup,” the former Bayern Munich striker said, as cited by Soccer Scenes Africa.
“For now it is advantage to Europe and South America. The slot for African teams is very bad. Only five teams in a world cup that has almost 13 European teams. If Black lives really matter, we should show it by actions in every institution not only by kneeling down.
“We need to balance everything, no one must be considered superior than the other. Despite all the talent they have, but it would be absolutely impossible to go all the way to reach the World cup final with only five teams in the tournament, meanwhile other continents have more than five,” he added.
Miroslav Klose made 137 appearances and scored 71 goals for Germany. He retired from football in 2016 and he is currently the assistant coach of German giants Bayern Munich.
Discussion about this post