Former President Kufuor Wants Ghanaians To Rally Behind Black Stars Coach Kwesi Appiah

Former President of Ghana, John Agyakum Kufuor has called on Ghanaian football fandoms to rally behind Black Stars head coach, James Akwasi Appiah.

Ahead of the 2014 World Cup that was held in Brazil, Kwesi Appiah was the first Ghanaian coach to qualify the country’s senior national team to the world cup in the history of the country’s football.

After playing in the round of 16^th in Germany 2006 and the quarterfinals in 2010 in South Africa in the FIFA World Cup respectively, the country’s football governing was expecting the former Al Khartoum gaffer to do more but the Black Stars were crashed out of the competition in the group stage of the competition.

Kwesi Appiah was however shown the exit door by GFA after the shambolic performance of the players in the 2014 Mundial.

Avram Grant who had previously coached West Ham, Portsmouth and Chelsea was given the mantle to end the country’s trophy-less jinx but failed to pass the task.

The Israeli tactician manager parted ways with the Ghana FA in 2017 after participating in the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations in Equatorial Guinea and in Gabon 2017 respectively.

Kwesi Appiah was reappointed by the country’s football governing body to take over from Avram Grant but the former president says Ghanaians should not put pressure on him [Kwesi Appiah] but rather give him the maximum support for him to deliver.

“I have known Kwesi Appiah from infancy and I did not like the way Ghanaians football supporters disgrace him after the 2014 FIFA World Cup.” He told Accra based Oman FM.

“When he joined Al Khartoum in Sudan as their head coach, they respected him and supported him. We always want the expatriate coaches to lead us but they don’t help us in the development of our national teams meanwhile a Ghanaian coach can do that job.

He continued, “I am happy Kwesi Appiah has returned back to the national team. We should believe in ourselves and not over-rely on the expatriate coaches because they have proven that they can never help us to develop our national teams.

“What we have to do as a country is to support our own and motivate that person. We should stop the moaning and the unnecessary complains because I know Kwesi Appiah can do the job. In less than few months he took over, he has brought huge development in the Black Stars and we have all been a witness of that,” he added.

The Ghana Football Association has tasked Kwesi Appiah to win the Africa Cup of Nations that will be held in Cameroon in 2019.