We will buy our own plane tickets – Black Stars players

• Posted on September 1, 2016
• by Nana Kwesi Coomson
• Comment

Players of the senior national soccer team, the Black Stars of Ghana, have requested to buy their own tickets to fly down and play the AFCON 2017 qualifier match against Rwanda this weekend at the Accra Sports Stadium.

This move by the players is as a result of the Sports Ministry indicating that the government has no money to fly the players down from their various clubs into the country to play the match this weekend.

Our checks at the Sports Ministry show that the players usually fly on a business class ticket, which cost about $10,000 each, but the Ministry says it has no money to cater for this cost.

The Communication Director, Ibrahim Sannie Darra, in an interview with Happy FM, has confirmed that the deputy skipper, Dede Ayew, has promised to pay for the tickets of all the foreign-based players invited for the game who do not have the financial strength to do so themselves.

Out of the 23 players called up by Coach Avram Grant, two are local-based players: Kadri Mohammed (AshantiGold) and Richard Ofori (Wa All Stars).

The players expected to fly into the country are Razak Braimah (Cordoba, Spain), Adam Kwarasey (Rosenborg, Norway), Harrison Afful (Columbus Crew, USA), Daniel Amartey (Leicester City, England), Jeffery Schlupp (Leicester City, England), Baba Rahman (Schalke, Germany), John Boye (Sivasspor, Turkey), Jonathan Mensah (Anzhi, Russia), Edwin Gyimah (Orlando Pirates, South Africa) Emmanuel Agyemang-Badu (Udinese, Italy), Afriyie Acquah (Torino, Italy), Thomas Partey (Atletico Madrid, Spain) Samuel Tetteh (Leifering, Austria), Mubarak Wakaso (Panathinaikos, Greece), Frank Acheampong (Anderlecht, Belgium), Alfred Duncan (Sassuolo, Italy), Christian Atsu (Chelsea, England), Asamoah Gyan (Shanghai SIPG, China), Jordan Ayew (Aston Villa, England), Ebenezer Assifuah (Sion, Switzerland), David Accam (Chicago Fire, USA).

By Herbert BOAKYE-YIADOM, ACCRA