Ghana Football Association (GFA) spokesperson Randy Abbey has told 90 MINUTES that Ghana's upcoming international friendly against Japan is at the request of the Japanese national team and all costs of the trip would be borne by the Japanese Football Federation. He stated that though the FA had initially decided against playing any international games until the World Cup qualifiers were over, they have accepted the offer to play Japan in Utrecht on September 9, 2009, a few days after Ghana's World Cup qualifier against Sudan in Accra.

Randy told this paper that the venue was determined by the Japanese because they will play another international against Holland in Enschede 3 days prior to the Ghana game.

Once Japan agreed to take care of the costs involved in the friendly we felt it was a good opportunity to give our players a good test ahead of the Benin game in Bamako,” he said. “Japan have already qualified to the 2010 World Cup and wanted a better opposition to test their team's readiness and felt we were the best so we also accepted their offer after the necessary consultations.” Randy further stressed that Ghana will use the game against Japan to test other players of the Black Stars as they attempt to form a solid squad to represent the nation in Angola and South Africa next year.