Sports News of Tuesday, 13 March 2001

Source: GNA Sports

Jones Attuquayefio Not Paid

Black Stars Head Coach, "Sir" Cecil Jones Attuquayefio has not receive a dime including a monthly salary of 5,000 dollars since taking over from Italian Giussepe Dossena last December.

Investigations by the GNA Sports revealed that even though the Ghana Football Association (GFA) was directed by the Ministry of Youth and Sports then headed by E. T. Mensah to sign the 30,000-dollar agreement, the GFA is yet to do so.

The coach was only given an appointment letter to start work but the actual contract documents were never signed.

Further investigations also revealed that until the Ghana-Sudan encounter where the coach was given fuel coupons for his rounds, Attuquayefio had relied on his personal vehicle plus his own fuel for his daily assignments.

Under this trying circumstances, the Coach had no option than to work hard to protect his reputation having lost his three outings including a 1-3 drubbing by Liberia in Accra.

However, after a face-saving performance against the Super Eagles of Nigeria in Accra last Sunday, coach Attuquayefio is considering throwing in the towel citing lack of support from the GFA.

Sources said when the coach released his final list of 22 locally based players against Nigeria; he attached a footnote stating his reasons for the decision. But strangely enough, the GFA published the list excluding the explanation.

Prior to the match, Attuquayefio expressed his frustration in an interview with an Accra FM station that he was being denied access to a recent video clip of matches involving Nigerian by the GFA in order for him to better strategize for the match.

The investigation also revealed that while the team was in Swedru preparing for Sunday's match, none of the GFA officials visited the camp to have a word with the boys, as has been the practise. It said however that Mr Yaw La-Danso, a new GFA member was seen at the Winneba training grounds the Thursday before the match.