Accra, Feb. 12, GNA – Charles Kwablan Akonnor Head Coach of Senior National Team, the Black Stars, Charles Kwablan Akonnor has explained why only locally-based players received invitation ahead of South Africa and São Tomé and Principe clashes next month.
The former Ghana skipper on Friday, February 12, named a 32-man home-based squad to move to camp on Monday, February 15 to begin preparation for next month’s doubleheader in the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) 2022 qualifiers.
He explained that “This is not the first time a national team coach is inviting home-based players. For us, it has become necessary to do this because of the challenges we faced before the Ghana versus Sudan match when players were not able to come because of COVID-19 issues.
“We made some late call ups but traveling restrictions and quarantine issues made things difficult for us. So, management and the technical team thought it wise to do this by inviting a chunk of home players to move to camp to prepare for the games.
“We believe that once the time gets closer, we would look at the foreign-based players who are doing well and without issues of COVID-19 to join the players.
“With all these at stake, we (myself and the rest of the technical team) have been able to go around to look into what is going on with our clubs and I must commend our coaches for a good job done.
“The players have done so well and we believe that those we have selected are the best in the country. Hopefully, when the foreign guys are able to come and join them, we would have a solid team to play South Africa and São Tomé.”
Ghana lies at the summit with nine points in Group F.
GNA