{"id":82253,"date":"2015-01-14T10:01:29","date_gmt":"2015-01-14T10:01:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/?p=82253"},"modified":"2015-01-14T10:24:16","modified_gmt":"2015-01-14T10:24:16","slug":"stephen-appiah-retires-football","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=82253","title":{"rendered":"Stephen Appiah retires from football"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"margin: 0in; margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: 15.0pt; background: white; vertical-align: baseline;\">Ex-Ghana captain Stephen Appiah has officially announced his retirement from football after about 20 years of a successful career.<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0in; margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: 15.0pt; background: white; vertical-align: baseline;\">The former Juventus star announced his decision on Wednesday in a statement.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_82270\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-82270\" style=\"width: 470px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/Stephen-Appiah-consoling-Asamoah-Gyan-after-penalty-miss.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-82270\" src=\"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/Stephen-Appiah-consoling-Asamoah-Gyan-after-penalty-miss.jpg\" alt=\"Stephen Appiah talking to Black Stars striker Asamoah Gyan after he missed the crucial penalty against Uruguay in World Cup in South Africa\" width=\"470\" height=\"325\" srcset=\"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/Stephen-Appiah-consoling-Asamoah-Gyan-after-penalty-miss.jpg 470w, https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/Stephen-Appiah-consoling-Asamoah-Gyan-after-penalty-miss-300x207.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 470px) 100vw, 470px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-82270\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Stephen Appiah talking to Black Stars striker Asamoah Gyan after he missed the crucial penalty against Uruguay in World Cup in South Africa<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p style=\"margin: 0in; margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: 15.0pt; background: white; vertical-align: baseline;\">Appiah said he is retiring with a \u201cgreat measure of fulfillment,\u201d because he \u201cbowed out serving my country with honour and selfless dedication in what was, is and will always be the most important sport or activity in Ghana.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_20096\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-20096\" style=\"width: 640px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/IMG_8363.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-20096 size-full\" src=\"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/IMG_8363.jpg\" alt=\"Stephen Appiah\" width=\"640\" height=\"427\" srcset=\"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/IMG_8363.jpg 640w, https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/IMG_8363-300x200.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-20096\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Stephen Appiah at the Accra Sports Stadium watching the Black Stars train<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p style=\"margin: 0in; margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: 15.0pt; background: white; vertical-align: baseline;\"><span style=\"font-size: 11.5pt; font-family: 'SourceSansPro','serif'; color: black;\">\u00a0<\/span>The \u201cTornado,\u201d as he is affectionately called, led the Black Stars to their first ever World Cup tournament in 2006 in Germany and was also part of the team that qualified for the first time to the quarter final of the World Cup in South Africa 2010.<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0in; margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: 15.0pt; background: white; vertical-align: baseline;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/juve.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-82264 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/juve.jpg\" alt=\"juve\" width=\"673\" height=\"400\" srcset=\"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/juve.jpg 673w, https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/juve-300x178.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 673px) 100vw, 673px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Describing one of his proudest achievements in a career that lasted two decades, he said:\u00a0&#8220;Every time I wore the most inspiring jersey in the world \u2018Black Stars shirt\u2019, I realized how fortunate I was not to only follow in a long line of great players that have played for Ghana but also the joy of\u00a0 representing every Ghanaian that cared passionately about their country. I&#8217;m honoured to represent Ghana both on and off the pitch.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/fernabache.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-82266 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/fernabache.jpg\" alt=\"fernabache\" width=\"656\" height=\"369\" srcset=\"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/fernabache.jpg 656w, https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/fernabache-300x168.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 656px) 100vw, 656px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Appiah was part of the back room staff of Black Stars coach Kwesi Appiah when the team participated in the World Cup tournament in Brazil in 2014.<\/p>\n<p>He played for some of Europe\u2019s big clubs including Juventus, Fernabache, Udinese among others.<\/p>\n<p>In Ghana he played for Accra Hearts of Oak.<br \/>\n&#8211;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>By: Nana Boakye-Yiadom\/citifmonline.com\/Ghana<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ex-Ghana captain Stephen Appiah has officially announced his retirement from football after about 20 years of a successful career. The former Juventus star announced his decision on Wednesday in a statement. Appiah said he is retiring with a \u201cgreat measure of fulfillment,\u201d because he \u201cbowed out serving my country with honour and selfless dedication in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":82254,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[29,43,3,38],"class_list":["post-82253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-dr-mahamudu-bawumia","tag-foresight-medical-center","tag-ghana-news","tag-palaver-newspaper"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=82253"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82253\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/82254"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=82253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=82253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=82253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}