Black Stars suffered Kumasi rejection but enjoyed Togo acceptance

GFA President Kwesi Nyantakyi has told the Justice Dzamefe Commission how the Black Stars have suffered the humiliating feeling of rejection in front of their own fans in Kumasi while playing an African Nations Cup qualifying game against Uganda.

Ghana drew 1-1 against a less fancied Ugandan side.

But the game drew boos and jeers from Ghanaian fans in the Ashanti regional capital, Kumasi, thought to be the stronghold of national support for the Black Stars.

The stadium was near empty just two hours before the game and was never full during the entire game. Kumasi football fanatics cast an intimidating shadow over the jittery players until the Black Star players walked off the pitch crestfallen after the game.

“I must tell you that the players really felt it. They really, really felt it”, Nyantakyi said Wednesday.

True to the biblical saying that a prophet has no honour in his hometown, the Black Stars enjoyed a different reception in neighbouring Togo where they had camped to play their next qualifying game against the Togolese Hawks.

GFA president said the players were overwhelmed by the affection shown by the opposing fans.

Much to the surprise of the players “they [Togolese fans] were running after the players and hailing them”, he said despite the Togolese losing the game.

The GFA President believes that the hooting and rejection in Kumasi “was overdone”. A member of the Commission Moses Foah-Amoaning  disagreed.

He believed the players needed to feel the full expression of Ghana's disappointment following a disastrous World Cup campaign in Brazil last June.

The abysmal performance and circumstances surrounding it informed the setting up of the Presidential Commission of Inquiry.