Ghana International Jerry Akaminko believes Kwesi Appiah’s decision to name a new captain of the team ahead of 2019 African Cup of Nations contributed to the Black Stars early exit from the competition.
With barely a month to last year’s competition, the former Ghana coach opted to name andre ayew as new captain; a decision that irked then-captain Asamoah Gyan to announce his retirement from the team.
It had to take the intervention of Ghana president, Nana Akuffo Addo to get the all-time Ghana top scorer to revise his decision.
But former Heart of Lions defender Jerry Akaminko told Citi FM that the Appiah’s decision affected the team.
“We have been having these issues since the days of Tony Yeboah, it is the responsibility of the coach to correct this situation. He is the leader of the delegation and must think about the decision carefully to see if it will help.
“There are so many ways he could have gone about taking the captaincy from Gyan.
“Gyan is not just any player, he is a big figure within the team and is also at liberty to make whatever decision makes him happy”, Akaminko said.
“Appiah should have understood that any decision made against Gyan was going to affect the Group because he is a figure that is looked up to. He should have called Dede and Gyan and spoken to them properly about the situation.
“There should be no conflict within the team. We lost the tournament before we left. You expect people to be happy within a team but it does not work like that,” he stressed.
The former Lions’ skipper 2012 has made 10 senior appearances for Ghana and scored one.
