Former Minister of Youth and Sports, Elvis Afriyie Ankrah has asserted that the Black Stars players should be held responsible for the 2014 World Cup scandal.
The senior national team was eliminated in the group stage of the tournament, securing only one point from three matches.
Prior to the final group game, the players demanded $100,000 each, threatening to boycott the match. This ultimatum led the government to arrange a direct flight to Brazil to resolve the situation.
In an interview with ChannelOne TV, Afriyie Ankrah contended that he was unfairly singled out for blame.
He argued that, people lampooned him instead of addressing the real issues.
“The biggest tragedy that happened to us was the way we handled the aftermath of the 2014 World Cup. After that World Cup, instead of the country focusing on the root causes of the issues, the focus was on me so it was all about me, me, me.”
“The root cause of the problem was that players insisted that they wanted ($) 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 government had to buckle in. 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. When the commission was set up, instead of the commission focusing on that, the commission was 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.”
The team’s underperformance led to the Ghana Football Association (GFA) parting ways with head coach Kwesi Appiah.