Ghanian soccer team captain Asamoah Gyan retires from National team, won’t play at the ACFON

Ghana’s all time top scorer Asamoah Gyan has announced retirement from international football ahead of the 2019 African Cup of Nationals, AFCON, in Egypt. Gyan is unhappy about a reported pending decision to strip him of the Black Stars captaincy.

Here is the presser from Asamoah Gyan;

‘My mother once told me, you cannot tout a decision you did not take as betrayal, because you have to respect it. I still do not understand that statement anyway.
I cannot pretend to be happy, I would rather hurt myself emotionally and psychologically, over the years I have served with an open heart and have given my all to the best of my ability in my quest to serving our great nation Ghana. I have represented the proud colours of our Country in 10 major tournaments from the Olympics, World Cups, and in African Nations Cups with different coaches.

In all I would say the last years have been the proudest moments in my career as a captain under the managerial leadership of Coach Akwasi Appiah I stood solidly behind my Coach during the difficult times in Brazil and, in some cases, supported the endeavours of the team financially when the need arose to make sure his tenure and my captaincy would not suffer challenges and to ride with the assertion; A Ghanaian coach can do it.

As an active footballer yet to retire, I have been in the team since 2003 and have played with some members of the technical team who were my seniors.

Through such periods, there were no times substantive captains were part of a team in a tournament and had to surrender their Captaincy to other players and served in different capacities Mr. Richard Kingston and Stephen Appiah would be in the best position to understand this.

My team, my family and fans have had reasons to whisper the trend of reportage and articles either to substantiate my exclusion or inclusion and again rumored roles I am to play at the AFCON in Egypt. In all, my answers have been “respect the decision of the coach because the records under the year per game minutes and goals for all attackers are evidence to guide his decision”

Upon consultation with my family and team and as an active footballer and captain of the National team if the decision of the coach is to give captaincy of the tournament to another player while I am named in the team for the tournament. I wish to recuse myself from the tournament I also wish to retrire from the nationai team permanently; not pretending my presence would not fuel the purported undermining the country has seen under my captaincy.