Two Ghana internationals had their Rolex watches stolen from separate rooms in a Vienna hotel, police confirmed — days before the Black Stars faced Austria in a World Cup warm-up friendly.
Vienna police described the stolen watches as worth a "low to mid five-figure sum in euros" each, with cash also taken from both rooms. No violence was involved. The players and the hotel weren't identified, but the location — Vienna's 22nd district — sits right next to where Friday's match was played.
Not exactly the ideal pre-match preparation
Getting robbed before an international is the kind of disruption no squad needs. Whether it rattled the players mentally is impossible to know from the outside, but it's hard to imagine it helped. Preparation for internationals is already compressed — these windows are short, the travel is draining, and the squads barely have time to gel before kickoff.
The Ghana Football Association didn't respond to requests for comment. Standard stuff for an association that has historically been slow to address off-pitch incidents publicly.
What makes this unusual is where it happened. Vienna consistently ranks among the world's safest major cities — it's practically a cliché at this point how low the crime rate is there. Whoever pulled this off knew what they were doing and likely knew who they were targeting.
Both sides heading to the 2026 World Cup
Ghana and Austria have both punched their tickets to the 2026 World Cup in the United States, Canada, and Mexico, which gives friendlies like this one real strategic weight. Coaches use these windows to test formations, assess squad depth, and build cohesion ahead of the tournament.
A theft scandal in the build-up doesn't derail any of that permanently — but it's a distraction nobody budgeted for. Ghana's World Cup prep just got a footnote it didn't need.
