Stars' Job For Kwasi Appiah

James Kwasi Appiah - New Black Stars Coach

James Kwasi Appiah - New Black Stars Coach A supposedly staggering wage demand by former France captain, Marcel Desailly, appeared to have cost him the Black Stars’ coaching job as the Ghana Football Association handed interim coach Kwasi Appiah a one-year full time deal.

Sources say he is entitled to $20,000 in monthly salary and an extra $1,000 as accommodation allowance if he opts not to use the apartment rented for his former boss, Goran ‘Plavi’ Stevanovic.

Inside sources have told Graphic Sports that he has requested to reshuffle his backroom staff, preferring Asante Kotoko’s coach, Maxwell Konadu, as his assistant, and Liberty Professionals’ team manager, Sabahn Quaye, as the team manager in a grouping of the men who conjured the gold medal-winning formula for the Black Meteors at the 2011 All Africa Games in Maputo, Mozambique.

And for answering Ghana’s call to duty, he is entitled to a $100,000 as signing-on fee.

Desailly, the FA’s first choice for the then vacant job, was said to have demanded €50,000-a-month in wages, besides his request that the FA also bears at least a part of the salary of a high profile assistant he intended to bring on board.

Graphic Sports impeccable sources said Desailly’s wage bill scared the head-hunting unit within the Executive Committee of the GFA into seeking alternative answers to their search for a permanent hand for Ghana’s main national football team.

In that exercise, the sources said, officials penciled Kwasi Appiah down as a readily avialable material for a period which will enable him execute majority of the 2014 World Cup and 2013 Nations Cup qualifiers, and the Nations Cup finals in South Africa, if he gets Ghana to the tournament.

Appiah, a former captain of the Black Stars, has understudied two expatriates, including Milovan Rajevac, and attended two Nations Cup tournaments and a FIFA World Cup. Those credentials, according to the sources, had put him high for consideration, with particularly his gold medal-winning effort as coach of the Black Meteors in Maputo mentioned as his biggest plus.

Seen as a local man with a true international exposure, Desailly became the hot favourite for the post after the GFA parted ways with Serbian Goran ‘Plavi’ Stevanovic following Ghana’s acrimony-filled Nations Cup campaign in Gabon and Equatorial Guinea in January and February this year.

Desailly who won the FIFA World Cup, European Championship and FIFA Confederation Cup with France appeared to have factored his accommodation and vehicle expenses into his negotiations, although he was not said to have stated them officially.

Indeed, his close associates had stated that the 44-year-old who won back-to-back UEFA Champions League trophies with Olympique Marseille and AC Milan in the 1990s intended to use his personal accommodation and his own car if he won the job.

Accommodation alone was expected to save the GFA about $120,000-a-year in rent if Desailly worked from his own home.

The former Chelsea star who holds a Pro License in coaching is said to be worth over €1 million a year from his work with various television channels in Europe.

Coach Appiah, who holds a UEFA License B coaching certificate, is expected to be outdoored in Accra next Tuesday.