Ghana’s National Sports Authority (NSA) has announced its highest ever ticket sales was made from the match against Nigeria.
According to foremost Ghanaian journalist, Gary Al-Smith, the NSA boss said gate proceeds from the game amounted to 1.4m Cedis ($190,000). The NSA boss was quoted as saying “this is the highest amount recorded from ticket sales from any national team football match, ever.”
Football authorities had made the majority of the tickets sold in electronic form.
The closest ever game according to Al-Smith was Asante Kotoko’s campaign on the continent in 2019, and 900,000 Cedis was made at the time.
The 40,000-seater Baba Yara Stadium was packed to the rafters on Friday, with unofficial sources saying as many as 70,000 fans were in the stadium on the night to see the Super Eagles force Ghana to a draw.
Black Stars of Ghana are in Abuja where they’ll play the second leg of the games at the Moshood Abiola National Stadium.
Nigeria last played at the World Cup qualifiers in Abuja more than ten years ago with the return to the ground expected to have fans from all walks of the country in attendance.
Nigeria Football Federation and the Ministry of Finance have released 20,000 tickets to for free while 100 buses have also been reported to transport fans to the stadium.
The winner of the game will hold one of Africa’s five tickets to the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.