South Africa coach, Hugo Broos has complained about the stadium set to host the Bafana Bafana match against Nigeria.
Broos has criticized the Free State Stadium (Bloemfontein), tagging it as not good enough to host a match of such magnitude.
“I said already before we are not happy with the pitch. I said already before they said I don’t want to play here, it’s stupid because the pitch isn’t what we want to have.
“All the qualities we play, we play on very good pitches. This one is not so good, there is no reason why we play here against Nigeria, this is nonsense. We like to have a very good pitch like we had before.
“It’s not like that and we have to do it with the pitch tomorrow, and we played on Friday also on this pitch. It wasn’t our choice, it was Lesotho that were the home team.
“But, it’s not that bad, we all saw the game on Friday, we can’t really say it’s a very bad pitch. It’s not what it has to be but okay, it’s for both teams, we have to play the game tomorrow and that’s all.”
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The Free State Stadium hosted South Africa’s second game against Lesotho.
It has a 46,000 capacity and is originally a rugby stadium, serving as the home ground for the Free State Cheetahs.
It’s unclear why South Africa decided to move the tie against Nigeria to a rugby ground when they have football stadiums like Peter Mokaba Stadium, which hosted the March 2025 World Cup qualifier against Lesotho.
