Last week the Ghana Football Association confirmed the availability henceforth of six players for the Black Stars.
Five of the six were players who were confirming their nationality switches whiles the other one was a man who was declaring his readiness to play for the country of his birth.
The players were Tariq Lamptey who ditched England for Ghana, Stephan Ambrosius, Ransford Yeboah, and Patric Pfeiffer who opted for Ghana over Germany, Inaki Williams who after making one appearance for Spain has now chosen Ghana and Mohammed Salisu who has conveniently heeded to calls to play for Ghana.
Of the, two of them received mixed reactions with divided opinions on their sudden change of heart.
Unlike the other four, the news of Inaki Williams and Mohammed Salisu was not met with the exact jamboree they would have expected.
Instead, their stories were argued on lines of commitment and motivation with their critics ascribing the World Cup pull as the only reason for their decision.
These mixed reactions were founded on the explicit and implicit conducts of the two players in the past when Ghana knocked on their doors.
For Inaki Williams, most critics held him to his own word of not feeling Ghanaian enough to play for Ghana. The Athletic Bilbao forward told The Guardian that he felt more Spanish than Ghanaian and will be leaving a life of falsehood if he picked Ghana over Spain.
“I’m grateful to where I grew and became who I am. Ghana tried to convince me, but I was born in Spain, in Bilbao. I won’t ever forget my family roots, but I feel Basque and can’t con anyone. I would be comfortable with Ghana, I’m sure, but I shouldn’t be there,” Williams told The Guardian.
“And my mum knows how people live football there: it’s quite something, and she’d be worried about me. My parents are from Accra and I really enjoy going. But I wasn’t born or raised there, my culture’s here, and there are players for whom it would mean more.
“I don’t think it would be right to take the place of someone who really deserves to go and who feels Ghana 100 percent.”
Mohammed Salisu on the other hand got into the news for making a u-turn after repeatedly turning down the Black Stars.
The Southampton defender was a subject of proposals from the Ghana Football Association since his days at Real Valladolid but he never for once looked Ghana’s way.
Alhaji Karim Grusah, a member of the Black Stars Management Committee had the unpleasant experience of being fed with some harsh words by Salisu Mohamed.
The theory was that the Ghana Football Association had unfairly treated Salisu and that he was holding back from playing for the country as a form of retaliation.
The supposed juju perception in the team’s camp was also cited as the basis for Salisu’s unwillingness to play for the Black Stars.
But after rejecting to play for Ghana in the all-important games against the Super Eagles of Nigeria, Salisu has agreed to play for Ghana and could be lined up for the games in the AFCON qualifiers next week.
KPE
Inaki Williams has agreed to play for Ghana