Former Ghana goalkeeper Abukari Damba has slammed the Ministry of Youth and Sports over its inability to purchase air tickets for Black Stars players to fly home for the 2017 African Cup of Nations qualifier against Rwanda.

The Ministry said the norm practice of flying foreign-based players for games would not be feasible this time round because they have to turn their attention to other sporting disciplines.  

Speaking to the media, Damba said: “Let’s look at this scenario. We have government appointees and they fly out there or go out there to go and do government business. Do they fund themselves? They don’t, so why should football players fund themselves because they are coming to play for the nation?”

Damba asked the Sports Ministry to resolve the situation.

He said, “During our era, yes, we had players who bought their own tickets and flew down, but it was based on understanding, good communication between players, and administrators for that matter."

“I agree certain times monies are not released because of bureaucracies and all that so players are spoken to, they feed themselves, they fly down, and afterwards they are reimbursed; that is understandable. But it must be amicable and there must be some respect between the two entities,” he counselled.

The Black Stars play Rwanda in their final AFCON 2017 qualifier on Saturday, September 3, at the Accra Sports Stadium.

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