Soccer News of Tuesday, 27 February 2007

Source: GNA

Boakye's international career over -LeRoy

Accra, Feb 27, GNA - Claude Le Roy, Coach of the senior national team, the Black Stars has effectively cut short the international career of German based Ghanaian international, Isaac Boakye.

The Coach in a press conference in Accra on Tuesday said he has decided to send a message to all the players under him that the nation comes first and that under no circumstance should they take the team for granted.

Coach Le Roy who was angered by Boakye's intransigence in turning down national calls without any justifiable excuse, said as long as he remains the coach of the Stars, there will not be a place for the player.

"Boakye can play for Wolfsburg for the next 20 years and even be named the best player in Germany, but he will never play under me".

"I will not force any players to play for the national team since players all over the world rather take great pride in playing for their nations. I don't see why the situation should be different when it comes to Ghana".

The coach added that "I will not allow any player to hold my team to ransom as I'm going to work with those prepared to sacrifice and die for the national flag."

Coach Le Roy said Isaac Boakye is not the only player who will be expelled from the team and that he has extended an olive branch for the last time to the likes of Quincy Owusu Abeyie of Spartak Moscow and Derek Owusu Boateng of Bertha Jerusalem.

He said if the two fail to honor their next invitations to play for the Stars the door will also be shut on them.

Boakye's run-ins with the national selectors have been going on for a while now, but things took a turn for the worse when the player was over-looked when the list of players for the last Africa Cup of Nations held Egypt was released.

The Official position of the team's coach then, Ratomir Djukovic was that the player was injured, a claim the player denied, resulting in the trading of accusations and counter accusations between the two.

Boakye after the Cup of Nations was again invited to justify his inclusion for the World Cup but the player turned down the offer.

Coach Le Roy on taking office after the World Cup decided to start on a clean note and hence invited Boakye for the recent friendly matches of the team.

All the overtures from the Coach however fell on deaf ears and the last incident to break the camel's back was when Boakye and his teammate at Wolfsburg, Hans Adu Sarpei were both released for the Stars last match against Nigeria in London.

Whilst Sarpei turned up Boakye was nowhere to be found and did not give any excuse for his absence.