Ghana coach Milovan Rajevac blames FIFA's decision to allow players join camp on January 3 for 'disorganised' preparations

Ghana coach Milovan Rajevac has been lamenting over his side's disorganized preparations following the late arrivals of most of his key players. 

FIFA extended the arrival date from December 28 to January 3, allowing most of the Europe-based players to join just six days before AFCON.

“Unfortunately this decision from FIFA to allow players to stay in their clubs in this period affected our plans for the preparation since most of the time we didn’t have many players to work with. Many training sessions we had 7 or 8 players and 3 goalkeepers so it’s very difficult to do some tactical work to prepare the team the way we planned in the beginning," he told GFA's media.

The Black Stars were hammered by Algeria in a friendly on Wednesday, and travel to Cameroon on Thursday, having played just a single test match.

An earlier friendly had to be cancelled because the number of players in camp were only seven.

“Even today we had like 13 players and 4 goalkeepers. Tonight few of them will arrive so definitely it affected but it affected the other teams as well. So this was not a usual preparation for a big competition because usual preparation you have two weeks to work with the full team. This was totally different. Let’s hope that everything will be okay at the tournament. We’re gathering, we have a good atmosphere so let’s hope everything will be okay,” added the Serbian trainer.

Ghana begins its AFCON campaign with a Group C opener against Morocco on Monday, January 10.