George Afriyie disagrees with Grant’s agent

In defending his clients long holidays abroad, Saif Rubie, agent of Ghana coach Avram Grant, did chastise the Ghanaian League for being low-grade.

But Ghana Football Association Executive Committee member George Afriyie vehemently disagrees with the licensed football agent, labeling Rubie’s judgement of the league’s quality as “a mere opinion”.

Pressure was mounting on the Israeli trainer for his incessant trips abroad and failure to monitor the local game for talents, but Saif believes his client has no option than to scout for players abroad because the quality of the Ghana league effectively rules players out of Grant’s plans.

“At the moment the quality of the league in Ghana is not up there due to a number of reasons. Any player that does well in Ghana goes to play in second or third division teams in Europe or Asia in places like Thailand and Vietnam and obviously for Avram, these are not the kind of players he will look to pick for the national team so the pool of players in the Ghanaian league is not the standard that it should be”, Saif told BBC.

And in a sharp response, George Afriyie who chairs the Black Stars management committee insists the Ghana League is not as bad as being claimed.

“That is his view and I disagree…..that is his view”, Afriyie said in response to Saif Rubie’s comments.

“That is not true,how can he say that?, because two seasons ago, Baba Rahman was playing for Asante Kotoko but he moved straight from the Ghanaian league to the Bundesliga”.

“It is true that some of our players move to some destinations that we have all spoken about but that does not mean we don’t have quality in our league…that is not true”, he concluded.