Blame gov't for Stars’ poor outing in Brazil – Kwesi Appiah

Ex-Black Stars coach Kwesi Appiah has broken his silence over what wrecked Ghana’s 2014 World Cup campaign.

He has revealed that several failed promises by government over when the Black Stars' appearance fee would be paid led to the team’s dismal showing.

In his first interview over what led to the team’s poor showing in Brazil in June, Appiah revealed last Tuesday that the Sports Ministry’s promise of paying the players their appearance fees during their training camp in Holland was not kept by the authorities.

Another promise of paying the players during their tour of the United States was also not kept by the sports ministry with the third promise of paying on arrival in Brazil also failing to materialise.

Subsequent promises by the ministry before the matches against USA and Germany also failed to materialise, which led to players boycotting training before the final group match against Portugal.

The Black Stars produced their worst showing at the World Cup this year when they could only manage one point from their three matches played at the group phase of the competition.

This led to trenchant criticism of the Black Stars coach and the team’s management committee for the team’s failure, but Appiah says these failed promises damaged the team’s plans, with players fearing they were not going to be paid.

“Before we played the USA game, they were told that the money was in a flight coming to Brazil. After that game, it took some days for the players to ask again,” Appiah said on Metro TV.

“Before the Germany game, they were promised again that they will get their monies right after the game and that was also not true. So they decided not to train two days to the Portugal game.

“By that time, they were fed up with my continuous pleas. So they insisted. And I knew we would have challenges.

“So during the Portugal game, you could see that the players were psychologically down.

“The money had really pre-occupied their minds. So we actually couldn’t progress because of those external factors which was the appearance fee,” he concluded.