By Adiza Bawa
Former BlackStars Defender, Joe Addo has bemoaned the spate at which former players are not celebrated especially, Asamoah Gyan.
Comparing Ghana to other countries, Joe Addo said, “because in the United States that I live, they glorify their players, they do. In Germany where I used to play, the players that won the World Cup, their names are written on stones. It’s not Ghana when you have a street named after you. In Germany, they glorify them. I remember when they won the World Cup in 2014, when the players were playing for their teams, the opposing teams were clapping for the World Cup winners”.
Asamoah Gyan
On Asamoah Gyan, the Former Defender noted that “ we have such a player in our midst or somebody who has done this for us and we don’t glorify them but rather we say negative things. He might have made a mistake, that’s fine, we all do, but we have to look at what he has done for this country and he has done great”, Joe Addo opined.
Some time back, when Asamoah Gyan lambasted Black Stars stop-gap Coach Otto Addo over his call-ups for the 2022 FIFA World Cup final playoff games against Nigeria, Asamoah expressed his worry over the Black Stars technical team’s decision to snub RSC Anderlecht midfielder Majeed Ashimeru for the games against Nigeria.
Ashimeru, who is currently among the best performing Ghanaian players in Europe, was surprisingly ignored by Otto Addo and his technical team in their 27-man squad list for the penultimate two-legged fixture.
The former Ghana captain took to his official Twitter account to express his disappointment over the omission of the 24-year-old Midfield dynamo.
After his tweet, Ghanaians took to social media to put their frustrations on him. The former Defender said,
“ I’m not saying he’s perfect. He might not be. Honestly, I don’t even know him. He’s not even my friend or anything. He’s too young for him to be my friend. But I must say, he has been in more competitions than any of them and we don’t glorify him”.
“There was a time he was sick, we were playing against one African team and they brought him in and as soon as he got in, he scored.”.
Joe Addo said Asamoah Gyan has raised the country’s International level so high and deserves to be glorified.
“I will say the same about Abede Pele and Tony Yeboah. Tony Yeboah was the first African player to win top scorer in Germany. Today we just lost Isaac Acquaye, a great player, but we are only talking about him now that he’s dead. And it’s not a consolation for the family”.
“So for me, Asamoah needs to be glorified by Ghana. He’s done a great thing for our nation.”
He asked Ghanaians to search for the African player with more goals in international competitions and they know what he(Joe Addo) is talking about.
“And for those on social media who know stuff, go and google it and see which African Player has scored more goals than Asamoah in international competitions??? None.”.
He urged football officials to make Asamoah Gyan part of football and be the Ambassador of our football, because “other countries respect him and we don’t”, Addo lamented.
