Former Black Stars captain, Asamoah Gya, has openly said ‘juju’ exists in football.
The use of black magic in the world of football is a subject players are reluctant to talk about.
However, the former Sunderland and Stade Rennais striker said he first witnessed such practices while playing colts football for Cedar in Ghana’s capital.
“Anything that has a name exists. We all, like in colts, we all go together and they tell us ‘get this and bath with it, do this and that’,” Gyan told Dan Kwaku Yeboah in a YouTube interview.
“And if you don’t do it and the team loses, they’ll say you caused the defeat. With Cedar, we did it once or twice. We played Liberty we were beaten 4-0, but juju is in football.
“I remember another colts game, a man told us to do something for two goals. Sometimes with a padlock, they will tell you if you score one that is it.”
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He added: “You can get an empty net and shoot wide when the one goal enters that is it so it (juju) is there. When someone scores a goal people usually say this is a mallam goal they know it (juju) is there.”
“We all have what we believe. Someone will close from church and pass by a mallam. There are a lot of players if they will tell the truth they do those things.
“Someone will not tell you their secret but if you are very observant you will see that something is going on. That person will not tell you there is something going on but if you are observant there are certain things you will see,” he added.
Gyan, who is currently clubless, remains the country’s all-time leading goal scorer with 51 goals and has featured in three different World Cups in Germany, South Africa and Brazil.