Former Youth and Sports Minister, Elvis Afriyie Ankrah has blamed the Black Stars players for Ghana’s shaming scandal at the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil.
The senior national team ignored training and threatened to play their group game against Portugal, protesting unpaid appearance fees worth US$100,000 for each player.
Despite negotiations with the leadership of the playing body, Ghana’s government flew money from the capital to Brazil and was broadcast live on Brazilian TV.
After the World Cup, the John Mahama-led government formed a commission of enquiry to investigate the debacle, thereby investigating government officials, players and some officials of the Ghana Football Association.
Hon. Afriyie Ankrah, the then Minister of Sports was questioned at the Dzamefe Commission and was cleared by the state of any wrongdoings.
However, in an interview with ChannelOne, the National Democratic Congress member laments that the players caused Ghana’s biggest tragedy in their World Cup history.
“The biggest tragedy that happened to us was how we handled the aftermath of the 2014 World Cup. After that World Cup, instead of the country focusing on the root causes of the issues, the focus was on me.
“The root cause of the problem was that players insisted that they wanted $100,000 appearance fee; the government said that we can only give you ($) 82,500 then the players said, if you don’t give us the money, we will not train so the government had to buckle in.
Afriyie Ankrah continued: “Then the players now said we don’t want a transfer, we want physical cash and so we were caught in a situation where we had to give them the cash and they refused to train twice and then, they didn’t win to qualify for the next stage.
“So that was the root cause? Instead of the Dzamefe Commission focusing on that, they focused on me.
He added, “If there are issues and I take responsibility, am I a player, do I play football? Is it my duty to go and train and play ball? So where players have relegated their duty, they must also be called to account so that then became a problem.”
Ghana lost 2-1 to the USA, drew 2-2 against Germany and lost their last game against Portugal.
