Ghanaian fans set to watch the World Cup in large numbers in Africa

Despite Ghana’s national football team, the Black Stars, not making it to this year’s FIFA World Cup, Ghana is set to register the highest game watch in Africa by proportion of the population, with 99 percent of Ghanaian men saying they will be following the contest, according to a survey by GeoPoll, the leading provider of fast, high quality research from Africa.


The Black Stars were the first African team to win the African Nations Cup, four times in 1963, 1975, 1978 and 1982, and were also the first African nation to win the FIFA Junior World Cup in 2009. The team has also qualified three times for the FIFA World Cup during the 2006, 2010 and 2014 games.

Of the six nations surveyed by GeoPoll, which also included Kenya, Tanzania, Nigeria, South Africa and Senegal, this has seen the Ghanaian men come close to the top of the World Cup knowledge score, with 80 percent of Ghanaian men able to identify correctly which month the FIFA World Cup would start, closely following Tanzania, which ranked the highest at 82 percent.

These results in position Ghana as the most FIFA-committed nation of those surveyed and confirm the fact that, if there is one thing Ghanaians are really ardent about, it’s football.

As it is, the Black Stars failed to make it to this year’s World Cup after a stalemate with Congo and the garnering of only two points, which was low compared to other teams such as Egypt.

Moreover, the wrangles experienced between Ghana FA President and his Vice George Afriye, who form the core of the team’s management adversely affected the team’s performance, as did the aging of some of its long-standing members.

Nonetheless, Ghanaians hold their team in utmost regard, hailing the Black Stars as one of the best football teams in Africa, and citing, in particular, Luis Suarez’s goal-line handball in the dying seconds of the quarter-final between Ghana and Uruguay during the 2010 World Cup. As a result, Ghana powerfully wants to see its team prove its glory in the next 2022 World Cup.

This unflinching support and national pride has maintained the FIFA World Cup on almost every Ghanaians’ watching schedule, despite the country’s failure to qualify for the 2018 finals, for in seeking its World Cup win of the future, Ghanaians have become the continent’s greatest experts, with Ghanaian men and women sharply outperforming their counterparts in identifying the number of African teams playing in this year’s games, with 58 percent of Ghanaian men and 38 percent of women very clear on who ‘got through’.

As Ghanaians now watch the efforts in 2018 of their future competitors, almost three quarters, or 74 percent, will be watching from home, while the other 26 percent will watch the games outdoors, at friends’ places, in the office, or in restaurants and clubs.

For the 2018 contest, over 50 percent of Ghanaians will be supporting Egypt, although most of them believe that Germany will win.

HYPERLINK “http://bit.ly/GeoPollWorldCup” Download the free 2018 World Cup Insights Report here.

About GeoPoll

GeoPoll is a leader in providing fast, cost-effective market research from areas that are difficult to access using traditional methods. Working with clients including global brands, media houses, and international development groups, GeoPoll facilitates projects that measure ROI of TV advertisements, demonstrate demand for new products, and assess food security around the world.

GeoPoll combines a robust mobile surveying platform that has the ability to conduct research via multiple modes with a database of over 240 million respondents in more than 60 countries. Strengths lie in GeoPoll’s ability to target extremely specific populations, deploy surveys in multiple countries, and provide expert guidance on how to collect accurate, reliable data through the mobile phone.