Eight Players active in Ghana's national team have served withdrawal notice ahead of 2025 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) qualifiers against Angola and Niger.
This was contained in a statement issued by the Ghana Football Association (GFA) on November 11, confirming the absence of these players: Antoine Semenyo, Inaki Williams, Jonas Adjetey, Tariq Lamptey, Jerome Opoku, Alexander Djiku, Ibrahim Osman, and Joseph Paintsil.
GFA listed the reasons for the absence of each of the said players and it has to do with various injuries except Joseph Paintsil whose is based on personal problems.
All the affected 8 players are part of Head Coach Otto Addo’s 25-man squad unveiled on Thursday, November 7. Unfortunately, they have declined to play at least, in the two upcoming games on November 15 with Angola and November 18 with Niger.
The withdrawal of these key players further drops the prospect of the team qualifying for the African continent tournant. The team has been performing abysmally in recent time, failing to win matches that they were not expected to lose.
The hope of Ghana qualifying can only be revived when they win the two matches against Angola and Niger this month.
In the meantime, six players have been called to replace the 8 players. They are Osman Bukari (Austin FC), Ransford Yeboah Koningsdorffer (Hamburger SV), Forson Amankwah (Norwich City), Terry Yegbe (IF Elfsborg), Ebenezer Annan (OFK Beograd) and Kingsley Schindler (Samsunspor) This and many other unfortunate developments around the once feared national team appear to justify bitter complaints of critics against poor handling of sport in Ghana by the incumbent government and other leaders in the sport arena.
