Former Youth and Sports Minister, Elvis Afriyie Ankrah, says the decision to let Asamoah Gyan play for Ghana at the 2022 FIFA World Cup should be left to the technical team.
Ghana’s all-time top scorer, Asamoah Gyan, in an interview with the BBC said he is keen on playing for the Black Stars at the World Cup in Qatar.
Gyan’s last appearance for Ghana was during the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations game against Tunisia.
The 36-year-old last played competitive season during the 2020/21 Ghana Premier League season where he featured five times for Legon Cities.
In an interview with BBC’s John Bennett, Gyan admitted he is not fully fit at the moment and is working hard to be in a good shape.
“Anything can happen, it has happened before back in 1994 when Roger Milla came back from retirement to play in the World Cup,” he said.
In an interview with Luv Fm in Kumasi, Elvis Afriyie Ankrah said Coach Otto Addo and his technical team should be left to make a proper analysis of the current form of the player before considering Gyan’s inclusion.
“It’s entirely up to the coach, he has to assess him, his physical fitness, mental fitness and match fitness because those are different levels. You have to be physically fit, your state of mind and then match fitness which also has to do with the track record watching you in real competitive matches or training sessions to see if you’re still sharp. So those are not decisions that I can just sit in my room and say yes or no. Those are decisions that those who are responsible have to do all the analysis and decide based on the facts and evidence, not on sentiments and emotions,” said the former Sports Minister.
Elvis Afriyie Ankrah stressed that the technical team will also have to factor in the strategies they intend to adopt at the World Cup in taking any meaningful decision on Gyan’s inclusion in the team.
“Also based on the team’s strategy, we are going into a World Cup and the technical people will have a strategy as to the kind of formation that they want to use. Whether they want to use an attacking predominant type of team, or midfield predominant because we have a lot of talents at that department of our team or defensive like the so called one goal project type of thing. So again all these are things that those who are responsible will have to make a firm decision on,” he said.
