Dishonesty by officaldom cost us at Senegal ’92 — Yeboah
After more than 25 years of silence, former prolific striker Tony Yeboah has finally accused officialdom as the main cause of the Black Stars’ failure to win the Senegal 1992 AFCON trophy for Ghana.
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“Nothing went wrong among the players during the 1992 tournament. It was the officials who were not honest to the players and that affected our performance on the pitch”, Yeboah disclosed during an exclusive interview with Graphic Sports in Kumasi.
“Nothing went wrong among the players during the 1992 tournament. It was the officials who were not honest to the players and that affected our performance on the pitch”, Yeboah disclosed during an exclusive interview with Graphic Sports in Kumasi.
Explaining further, he said it was the dishonesty and lack of transparency displayed by FA officials at the time, which eventually affected the team’s performance, especially prior to the grand final against Cote d’Ivoire.
He said prior to the final, skipper Abedi Pele had attracted two yellow cards, thus disqualifying him from the game, and as a deputy skipper he was mandated to lead the team against the Ivorians
“However, just before the match, our coach Otto Pfister told us in the dressing room that he had just been given a letter from Accra, indicating that the captain’s band should rather be given to Tony Baffoe. Everybody was shocked to hear that news, so some of the key players were very disturbed and came to console me that I should not worry.
“But I told them not to worry about the treatment meted out to me but rather focus on the match and put up their best,” he revealed.
According to Yeboah, the players instead started questioning the action of officialdom, recalling that before the tournament, Kwasi Appiah, who was the then captain, had also been deprived of the captain’s band for strange reasons, but no one complained.
He said it was, therefore, shocking that just before such an important match, the coach should display a letter he claimed to have come from Accra and impose a captain on the team again.“There was no transparency and honesty among our officials, and this eventually affected our play on the pitch. In football, any trivial thing can affect a team’s performance, and I can say that the action of officials in 1992 was the main cause of our failure to win the trophy for Ghana.