Former Minister of Youth and Sports, Elvis Afriyie Ankrah, has stated that Ghana’s poor handling of the aftermath of Ghana’s campaign at the 2014 FIFA World Cup, is the biggest tragedy to happen to the country.
Ghana’s Men’s National Football (the Black Stars) exited the group stage at the mundial in 2014 after losing 2-1 to Portugal but in the lead up to the game, the ruling government compensated players with sums of $100,000 for each member of the playing unit after they threatened to boycott the game forcing government to charter a direct flight to Brazil to fix the issue.
However, in an interview with ChannelOne TV, the former Sports Minister, believes that he was unfairly targeted since the major issues that needed addressing weren’t.
“The biggest tragedy that happened to us was the way we handled the aftermath of the 2014 World Cup. After that World Cup, instead of the country focusing on the root causes of the issues, the focus was on me so it was all about me, me, me.”
“The root cause of the problem was that players insisted that they wanted ($) 100,000 appearance fee; the government said that we can only give you ($) 82,500 then the players said, if you don’t give us the money, we will not train so government had to buckle in. Then the players now said we don’t want transfer, we want physical cash and so we were caught in a situation where we had to give them the cash and they refused to train twice and then they didn’t win to qualify to the next stage.”
“So that was the root cause. When the commission was set up, instead of the commission focusing on that, the commission was focused on me. If there are issues and I took responsibility, am I a player, do I play football? Is it my duty to go and train and play ball? So where players have relegated their duty, they must also be called to account so that then became a problem.”
The former Sports Minister’s account on the financial incentive differences between the players and government officials in the aforementioned interview, mirrored his account of the events that took place in 2014 where he appeared before the commission on August 22, 2014 where he stated,
“The issue of the appearance fee came up, my Lord, and that is why the leadership of the team – captain Asamoah Gyan, Sulley Muntari, and Michael Essien who speak for the players – made a formal request that the 82,500 dollars approved by cabinet was not acceptable to them for the following reasons: “1: FIFA had increased the prize money from the last World Cup. 2. They were the ones who toiled and sweat on the field to get the team to the World Cup. 3. They also referred to the status of former players. 4. The players also said that their colleagues from other countries like Cameroon were being paid about 120,000 dollars as appearance fee.”
