Former Minister for Youth and Sports, Elvis Afriyie Ankrah has described as “most unfortunate” the announcement by his deputy, Joseph Yamin, of government’s decision to airlift $3M cash to Brazil to pay the appearance fee of the Blacks Stars.
Government flew the amount to Brazil after what was described as player agitation and a boycott of training session ahead of the final match against Portugal.
The agitation led to the personal intervention of President John Dramani Mahama in assuring the team the monies were going to be paid ahead of Ghana’s decisive Group G game against Portugal.
On Tuesday 24th June, Mr. Joseph Yamin on Citi FM’s EyeWitness News announced that government was airlifting $3M cash to Brazil for the payment of the appearance fees of the players.
Responding to questions on the announcement of the decision to fly $3M cash to Brazil on a special edition of Metro TV’s Good Evening Ghana programme, Mr. Ankrah said, “that was very unfortunate.”
According to him, the pressure from the players and Ghanaians on the delay in payment of the appearance fees caused Mr. Yamin to make the announcement.
“I don’t think that my deputy wanted to create chaos… All of us are humans and sometimes we crumble to pressure and the media is relentless and persistent. I think that out of that pressure he blurted it out,” he added.
The decision to airlift the money to the team gained global popularity among leading news brands in the world.
The arrival of the amount was captured live on Brazilian television channel, Globo and there were even images of some of the Black Stars’ players holding their share of the appearance fees after collecting them.