Kwesi Appiah warns his assistants not to take bribes from players

Black Stars coach Kwesi Appiah says never in his coaching career has he been forced to invite a player into the national team because he took a bribe from the player or his agent.

Many football advocates believe the various national football team coaches take bribes before giving opportunities to players to represent the nation.

But when asked if he had taken a bribe from any player before in his career during an interview with Happy FM, the former Al Khartoum Watani gaffer pointed out that he will never do that. He went ahead to warn his technical staff that he will not hesitate to sack any of them if they are caught in any bribery scandal.

"You can't even try it because I'm rich in my own way. When they say somebody is rich, it does not mean you have money to look after the whole Ghana but you're called a rich man because you have your peace of mind. You can have whatever you want at any given time without nobody's help, that's how you are considered rich," Appiah said.

"If I have let's say GHC 1,000 and I know that's enough to take care my family, I'm content with it so why should I try to seek for more from people, but it's like people know my character so they don't approach me with such talks."

The 57-year-old continued,"If you have a player and maybe he's good, but because you are trying to induce me to call him, I will even lose interest in the player. Because I believe if the player is good you don't need to pay any bribe before he can earn a call up."

"People may have the thinking that they can go and talk to my assistants in regards to giving their clients call ups, but I always tell my assistants that if any of them allow himself to be induced by any agent and I hear about it, I'll have no option than to sack you that very day because if you allow yourself to be used by players agents before handing him a call up, what control would you have over the player? The agent will not respect you as a coach likewise the player. Once you do that, the player will tell his other colleagues, and automatically you'll lose your respect, so I don't condone that kind of behaviour."

"It's my hope that none of my technical team will ever try to do that because I'll sack whoever does that from my team," Appiah deduced.