GFA to act on Bortey saga soon

The Ghana Football Association would soon come out with the appropriate sanctions for Bernard Don Bortey of Accra Hearts of Oak and the Black Stars for skipping national team call under a serious false pretext that he has lost a two year old baby.

Speaking with the GNA Sports on Tuesday, Mr Ben Koufie, Chairman of the GFA said any sanctions to be melted on the player would be based on the report Coach Burkhard Ziese would send to the FA on the player's conduct.

He said the FA is taking the issue very seriously since it is very unusual for a person to lie on the life of his child.

The chairman was not specific on the nature and manner of the punishment. Information from the Stars camp had it that the player failed to report to camp last week Monday without permission. It continued that the player resurfaced after two days absence with the excuse that he had lost the two-year-old child.

It said after the player had been consoled, the coach asked Kudjoe Fianoo, Welfare Manager of the Stars, to conduct further investigations into the issue and it was upon was this that it came out that the player was lying.

On the preparation for the Stars pending assignments, Mr Ben Koufie asked the public not to read meanings into the decision by the coach to send only one local based player to Frankfurt, Germany for the Four-nation tournament in Tunisia as a snub of the home based players.

"The camp held in Ghana for the local players was not to prepare the team for the tournament but to acquaint themselves with the coach.

"The foreign based players would also have their turn in Frankfurt for two days before continuing to Tunisia for the tournament".

He said the local player to travel to Germany would be a goalkeeper since it is the only position where there are not many foreign-based players.

Asked whether the re-inclusion of foreign based players discarded by the FA before African Cup in Mali is a shift from the policy of building a young team, the Chairman said the rebuilding plan is still in process since all the young players taken to Mali are still in the team.

He said players who have been re-invited are all playing regularly and would be of good use to the coach.

Mr Koufie said the young players are still needed since immediately after the tournament they would assemble for the All African Games and Olympics Games qualifiers, which start soon.