Black Stars head coach Chris Hughton’s non-inclusion of players from the betPawa Ghana Premier League is not an indictment on the league according to Head of Communications of Legon Cities Football Club, Kwame Dwomoh Agyeman.
He disclosed this in an exclusive interview with Citi Sports after Hughton named his 25 man squad to face Angola on March 23 at the Baba Yara Stadium in the 2023 AFCON qualifiers.
The two-legged tie against Angola will be Hughton’s first set of games in charge of the Black Stars since being named head coach of the four time African champions. Hughton served as Technical Advisor of the Black Stars under former head coach Otto Addo during the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
However, no player competing in the betPawa League including Kumasi Asante Kotoko goalkeeper Ibrahim Danlad was named in the team. Danlad was part of the Ghana squad that competed at the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar.
“We are looking at the best available players and it’s only 23 to 26 of them who can be called up every now and then, so if the manager decides that the players he wants to use for the game unfortunately are not based in Ghana, I am not too sure it necessarily indicts the league.
If for any reason the manager decides that he would want to look elsewhere, it’s probably because he believes probably a little bit more in the lads elsewhere than maybe the guys in here.”
Ghana is tied with Angola in Group E on four points but leads the group due to a better goal difference.