Citi News investigations have revealed that contrary to reports making the rounds in the media, there is no player revolt among the Black Stars in Brazil.
Since Tuesday afternoon, there have been increasing media reports of player unrest against coach Kwesi Appiah and the Ghana FA for what was said to be shambolic hotel arrangements for the Black Stars.
But Citi FM journalist Godfred Akoto-Boafo reports from Maceio, where the team is based, that the reports making rounds in Ghana remains news to him.
The reports in the local media had said that senior Black Stars players are revolting because of unhappiness with Kwesi Appiah and also poor hotel arrangements by the GFA.
On Wednesday morning, Citi Sports finally reached FA spokesman Ibrahim Sannie Daara who took time to explain the matter.
“The reports are very unfortunate and when we heard that they came from Joy FM yesterday evening, we asked their reporter here, Tony Bebli. He vehemently denied making a report and so we have been left surprised at how and why Joy FM news carried the story,” Sannie said.
“I have to say that when the players heard it they were very, very shocked. Asamoah Gyan personally asked the reporter who was said to have filed the report but Tony denied it.”
Official press release
Hours after the Citi FM story was aired on its morning bulletin show called KickOff, the GFA issued an official statement.
“We wish to state emphatically that the report is absolutely false and has no basis in fact. There is no player revolt against the coach of Black Stars and no player or players have been involved in any mutiny in the wake of the 2-1 defeat to the United States,” the statement says.
It goes on: “All the 23 players were present at training on Tuesday afternoon under the guidance of coach Kwesi Appiah. According to the report by Joy FM, a scheduled press conference was cancelled ‘due to what is reported to be a case of player revolt.’
“We wish to state that this report by Joy FM is totally untrue. The press conference which was scheduled to take place at 11am Brazil time to be addressed by management and not players, contrary to the report. It was rescheduled to 4:30pm because the squad only arrived in Maceio from Natal at 3am.”
Dissociation
In a related development, the #CitiSports team has distanced itself from a post on social networking site, Twitter, alleging that Citi FM was one of the stations to carry a false report of the alleged player unrest.
Citi FM wishes to distance itself from earlier @ghanafaofficial tweet accusing us of reporting player revolts in Black Stars. We did not.
— 97.3 Citi FM (@Citi973) June 18, 2014
Citi FM has been one of the few stations to independently verify the claims, taken time to speak to Ibrahim Sannie Daara to get both sides of the story.
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By: Gary Al-Smith/citifmonline.com/Ghana