The Ghana Football Association (GFA) stopped Black Stars coach Burkhard Ziese from travelling to his native Germany last night, citing a few issues needing attention from the soccer authorities as the reason.

The Coach was all set to depart last night following an earlier application for a 10-day casual leave to visit his sick mother and to attend a coaching clinic in Germany on Monday.

But the FA did not give the approval as it was still in a meeting yesterday deliberating on the issue, forcing Burkhard to abandon the trip, at least for now.

A GFA source told the Graphic Sports that the national association has asked the coach to hold on for some three days “until some few issues are sorted out with him”.

The decision to stop the Stars’ coach from undertaking the casual leave may have been informed by the sordid experience the GFA suffered in the unceremonious departure of Yugoslav Milan Zivadinovic under similar circumstances last year.

Coach Ziese’s predecessor, in a fraudulent manner, bundled bag and baggage from Accra and headed for his home country after just one match in charge as the Black Stars coach under the pretext of visiting his sick mother. And that was the last time the nation saw him.

With that experience fresh in the minds of Ghanaians, an amount of uncertainty hanged over whether coach Ziese would return after the initially agreed 10-day leave of absence.

That uncertainty is reinforced by the current clamour for his dismissal from the Black Stars’ job following Ghana’s disastrous Nations Cup qualifying campaign under his supervision.

Added to the current confusion blowing between the Sports Ministry and the GFA over who has power to dislodge him from the job and how it should be done, Mr. Ziese’s request may have sent the wrong signals to the sports authorities.

Coach Ziese decision to travel at this time raises questions over whether he intends quitting the job ahead of what he may have perceived as an imminent sack following the critical examination the GFA has applied to his nearly five-month stewardship and the various events that have characterised his second coming to the job.

Burkhard Ziese retention, even if it happens, may well prove not worth the time, effort and resource in the wake of the strained relationship he developed with the bulk of the foreign region of Black Stars in the days leading up and proceeding the matches against Uganda in Kumasi and Rwanda in Kigali.