A section of the media has within the week been reporting of an obvious conspiracy by some senior players of the national football team – the Black Stars, to boycott call-up for national duty.
It was even suggested by the media that Michael Essien’s decision to take temporary leave of the Black Stars was mainly due to the silent decision by the big boys to quit the team.
As it stands, it would not be surprising to see most of the big boys invited for the Stars’ Cup of Nations qualifier against minnows Swaziland early next month.
According to the media organizations privy to the plot, the players are not happy about the manner it is being portrayed that the upsurge branding of the Black Stars is mainly due to the efforts of Kwesi Nyantakyi and his team of officials at the helm of the Ghana Football Association (GFA).
In effect, the untiring efforts of players like Stephen Appiah, Laryea Kingston, Asamoah Gyan, Michael Essien, Sulley Muntari and other senior players who either lost favour with their club managers or got injured while on national assignment have been neglected when the new page is being discussed.
The players, according to the reports, are also miffed that the authorities often go for the most luxurious hotels and enjoy the comforts of such edifices with their mistresses at the expense of the players who are the real actors of the game.
Although we are yet to confirm the allegations, Today believes the closeness of such media houses to the said players meant the reportage cannot be taken to be the usual gossips and often rumours peddling by the section of the media.
Perhaps deputy captain, John Mensah, offered a harbinger of what was in store for the Stars’ officials when he virtually held officials hostage at the GFA over non-payment of their World Cup bonuses.
Today had been overly worried about the manner the Kwesi Nyantakyi-led administration has been devoting every attention to the cause of the national team at the expense of our local game or league. The concerns raised by the players clearly confirm the paper’s belief that the GFA is only interested in the national team because of their parochial selfish deeds.
We are however not in support of the approach being adopted by the players. The paper believes the players should be bold in exposing the rot rather than resorting to such cowardice. After all, excesses of some of them are in the public domain and although officialdom had tried to cover up for them in some instances, deductions from other answers provided by GFA officials clearly describe some of the players as reckless and disrespectful lots.
Indeed Ghana abounds in talents to the extent that we believe no one would do the bent-knee bid to get the players who are contemplating quitting the Black Stars to rescind their decision. Yet paying back what the Ghana platform had offered them is not only playing for the country, but also helping to get rid of such official charlatans for the sake of posterity.
This is because they can decide to quit the national team; but we believe their date with history would be short-lived because there are bunch of hungry young ones who are dying to fill the void immediately.
There are also other diaspora Ghanaians like Jeffrey Sarpong, John Takyi, Adam Kwarensey and others who are eager to don the Ghanaian jersey and so if the so-called senior players thought their action will amount to hostage, then they should be reminded that they are only signing their early obituary and that the best legacy they can bequeath mother Ghana is to help expose the rot within the GFA.