Sports News of Tuesday, 23 March 2021

Source: www.ghanaweb.com

Black Stars call-ups: Resign if there is pressure from above - Dr. Nyaho Tamakloe to CK Akonnor

Black Stars coach, CK Akonnor Black Stars coach, CK Akonnor

Former Chairman of the Ghana Football Association, Dr. Nyaho Nyaho Tamakloe has advised Black Stars coach Charles Akonnor to leave his post if he is not being allowed to work independently.

The announcement of the Black Stars squad has dominated the headlines in the past few days as many football pundits and Ghanaians continue to ask questions on why certain players were invited for the Africa Cup of Nations qualifier against South Africa and Sao Tome and Principe.

The media has reported that some of the names in the Black Stars squad were smuggled in the list at the blind side of head coach Charles Akonnor and his technical team.

The reports further alleged that coach Charles Akonnnor and his assistant David Duncan submitted only a 26-man squad to the Ghana Football Association but a 29-man list has been put out to the public domain.

Key among the discussion was the inclusion of midfielder Kwame Afriyie who plies his trade with English fourth-tier side Colchester United.

Reacting to these reports, Dr. Nyaho Nyaho Tamakloe who was the GFA Chairman in 2004 has advised the coach to resign if the list he sent to the GFA was different from the published one because, "No foreign coach will allow this happen."

"No foreign coach will allow this happen, never and none of the coaches I have seen and worked during my time will allow this to happen in the national team."

"The coach himself amazes me in the sense that if he is a coach who has an independent mind, he will tell whoever brings players to him that this player cannot be accepted or this player is not better than the one who has been chosen. But if he is being pressured to call certain players, the only thing he should do is to resign," he told Accra-based Angel FM in an interview.

"This should be probed because we thought we had gone a bit higher in our sports administration, and also, we had gone a bit higher in making sure that bribery and corruption are eradicated. So, if these things are happening like that, it must be a concern to every Ghanaian because this is very disturbing and the earlier, we conduct an investigation into this matter the better for all of us in this country," he concluded.