Soccer News of Tuesday, 8 May 2001

Source: Concord Times (Freetown)

Kweme Ayew Explains Why They Did Not Win

...Match Against Sierra Leone

Ghanaian Turkish-based Kwame Ayew who scored the lone goal for Ghana in a draw match with Leone Stars has said in Freetown in an interview with Concord Times that they would have won the match but added that most of their players are young and inexperienced.

" That's why we failed to win," he said. Kwame said the Saturday World Cup Qualifiers was played by both sides and as he put it "the match was fairly good".

"Most of our players are inexperienced because it was the first time they played for the Ghana's Black Stars," he said.

He said he advised his colleagues in the second half to maintain the system and style they succeeded in scoring a goal in the first half by playing the ball on the ground. "But they didn't listen to me and I believed if they had, we would have had an edge over Sierra Leone." Added Kwame Ayew.

He further said "Sierra Leone's penalty was a genuine one. Inexperienced really cost us because the angle Keister was with the ball, there was no way he should have scored." The Turkish - based player also said that he was disappointed because his goal did not give them their needed victory.

He lamented that all is not lost and that they were still in the race but admitted that it would take them a lot of work to qualify because it would not be easy to beat Liberia and Nigeria in their own countries.

"So many things are still going wrong in Ghana Football and until those things are rectified, I think it would be very difficult for us to make it. Since I've started playing for the Ghanaian national team about eleven years, there has been a lot of problem and if I want to talk about the problems of the Ghanaian soccer, I wouldn't finish. Our main problem has been organisation". Ayew disclosed.

He said the Ghana authority did not respect players. They always treated us like 'Cobolo' meaning street boys in one of our languages in Ghana" he said..