Don't Cry for Kuffour, Aggrey Tells Ghanaians

Deputy Sports Minister, Joe Aggrey, has told Ghanaians not to cry for Bayern Munich defender, Samuel Osei Kuffour, over the missed African Footballer of the Year award.

Aggrey, former President of the Sports Writers Association of Ghana (SWAG), said Kuffour did not do much for Ghana to deserve the award won by Senegalese Alhadji Deaf, April 16 in South Africa.

"People should not be sentimental about this issue. Kuffour does not deserve to win the award. He played only two matches for Ghana last year," he said.

The Deputy Sports Minister said the award is an African award and should be largely based on what players contribute to the development of football in Africa rather than their exploits in the European clubsides.

He added that discipline and comportment of players count in the award and that would have also weighed heavily against Kuffour who cried that he was robbed of the award.

Aggrey who was speaking at the La-Palm Royal Beach Hotel in Accra penultimate Saturday said Kuffour should search himself and put up a good-boy image and serve his country like he is doing for his German club.

In a separate interview at the Accra Sports Stadium, former Black Stars coach, Sam Arday said it would be unfair to tie Kuffour s loss to the FIFA election because Issa Hayatou wanted to spite Ghana owing to Abedi Pele Ayew s support for Sepp Blatter, the incumbent FIFA boss.

"I don t think CAF influenced the award to favour Diouf. Kuffour s loss should not be tied on the FIFA election, it would be unfair to do that," he said.

Arday, however, declined to comment on whether Kuffour deserved it or not, stressing that he was pre-occupied with the youth development programme he was handling as "that is where Ghana s future lies."