General News of Wednesday, 2 July 2014

Source: Ghana FA

Ghana FA to face Ghanaians today over World Cup failure

In the wake of Ghana's exit from the FIFA World Cup in the group stage, the Ghana Football Association will hold a press conference in Accra to shed light on the country’s abysmal performance.??

The press conference to be held at the Alisa Hotel at 1.00 pm today is expected to give a blow-by-blow account of the national team's participation in the tournament.

??Ghana made their third-straight appearance at the World Cup in Brazil. But they crashed out after losing to Portugal in the last Group G game. Woeful on-the-pitch performance was outclassed by much more woeful performance off-the-pitch.

Ghana coach Kwasi Appiah, the GFA boss Kwesi Nyantakyi and the entire Black Stars squad, especially Sulley Muntari and attacker Kevin Prince Boateng, have come under strong criticisms following a less-than-the-standard performance at the World Cup.

Sulley and Kelvin were sacked from the camp before the game against Portugal for acts of indiscipline.

There were persistent media reports of some players fomenting mutiny. And they were earlier denied by the GFA.

The final straw was after the players insisted on receiving their $100,000 appearance fee or boycott the game. The government okayed the physical transfer of $3 million to Brazil via a chartered flight hours before the game.

Nonetheless, Ghana lost 2-1 to Portugal, activating a first round exit - short of an ambition to reach the semi-finals

Ghana FA president, Kwesi Nyantakyi has attributed the failure by the Black Stars to cross the first round at this year's World Cup to the "appearance fee syndrome".

"Money, money, money had been the refrain by the players, and it is a pity they allowed this to ruin our World Cup," he has lamented.

The president has call for a committee to investigate the record failure.