President of the Ghana Football Association (GFA), Kwasi Nyantekyi, has said that, the senior national team, the Black Stars, is not a district assembly or Parliament, where players are chosen based on their geographical location.
He said players were not selected for the national team because they were in the foreign or local league, but purely on competence.
Mr. Nyantekyi said the most important thing is that, all the players were Ghanaians, regardless of where they ply their trade.
“We are all striving for the good of Ghana, to present a good team that will bring victory to Ghana to restore our honour. Let us stop dividing the team into foreign and local players.”
“The criterion for choosing the players is for the player to be a Ghanaian first of all and should be competent, that’s all,” he noted.
This was in response to questions from the media at a press conference, as to why there was no single local player in the provisional 26-man squad named by the coach for the 2017 AFCON.
Coach Avram Grant added that, “I’m always positive-minded when going for a tournament and the only concern now is how to win the trophy and not whether a player is local or foreign. Competence is what I want”
He said he thought about it over and again before coming out with this squad and therefore urged the media to stop creating discriminatory atmosphere of local and foreign players adding, “a local player today might be an international player in the next season so who is a local player?,” he enquired.
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Source: GNA