We almost had a plane crash – 95 World Cup winner opens up on team’s struggles

1995 World Cup winner Nana Attakora Amaniampong is still enraged by the treatment and unfulfilled promises handed by the government and Ghana Football Association.

A group of talented players went on to conquer the world in Ecuador after establishing their superiority on the continent.

Made up of Amaniampong, Stephen Appiah, Ishmael Addo and host of other gifted players, the Starlets defeated Brazil 3-2 in the final to win Ghana’s second and last trophy at that level.

Twenty-five years after the glory was achieved, the government and FA are yet to honour their promises to the players.

Speaking on GTV Sports+ Studio 5 programme, Amaniampong opened up on the struggles they had to overcome to reach that feet.

He said in one of their movements during the tournament, their plane nearly crashed.

“We passed through so many things before the World Cup. We went through a lot of things but God was with us. So many incidents happened. One of them was when we were changing flights to another venue for a game. We nearly had a plane crash. The plane had to be grounded less than five minutes after it took off so when it landed, we thought we had arrived at our destination.

“Not knowing the plane had developed a fault so if we had continued, no one knew what would have happened,” he said.

Amaniampong’s revelations come few weeks after Awudu Issaka who was part of the squad announced plans by the players to demonstrate over their bonuses.

He revealed that most of the players outside Ghana are bent on returning to the country to help their colleagues earn what is due them.

“We the 95 team have a WhatsApp group and we are planning on going on a demonstration,” Awudu Issaka said on Studio5 on GTVSports+.

“We were promised by the state that each player will receive $5,000 for winning the cup but none of us has received anything from the state. In some countries like Nigeria, the players were given houses, others were also given cattle as rewards so we thought we were going to be given something bigger but we received nothing,” he added.

“It was only President Rawlings who gave us (old) GHC 50,000 as treasury bills after we presented the trophy to him but that one is his personal gift to us, what we are demanding is what the state promised us,” Awudu Issaka stressed.