Zero-tolerance for Muntari’s return to Stars! T
How many times has Sulley Ali Muntari asked to be pardoned for his national team faux pas?
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This appears like a question for a “What do you know?” contest. And if we are to answer it, we will simply say: We have lost count and, perhaps, the circumstances.
It isn’t once, twice nor three times. It may be the fourth time since the talented national football player found himself at the wrong end of discipline and has to apologise, as it were.
Muntari’s first altercation, as we can remember, was at the 2004 Athens Olympics with the Black Meteors when Coach Mariano Barreto got the endorsement of then GFA Chairman Dr Nyaho Nyaho-Tamakloe, to sack him for breaking camping rules.
Subsequently, he went into a self-imposed exile from the national team, saying he had retired from international football..... at age 20. Ridiculous!
Not long, however, he returned to national team duty, only to mark it with another indisciplined behaviour during the Black Stars 2010 World Cup campaign in South Africa.
He fell out with Coach Milovan Rajevac who, red-eyed, indicated Muntari’s expulsion from the team, but the restraining influence of the FA President, Kwesi Nyantakyi, and team captain Stephen Appiah saved him from being thrown out.
But as incorrigible as Muntari would want the world to see him, the Brazil 2014 Mundial provided yet another platform for him to prove that.
And it must have been the height of incorrigibility when he physically assaulted a management member of the Stars, while holding the team to ransom over unpaid allowances.
It was an embarrassing episode which, together with other incidents, brought an untold world-wide shame on the country, leading to a Presidential Commission of Inquiry which recommended, among other decisions, that Muntari be banned definitely from the national team.
Indeed, Muntari did not only fail or rather refuse to appear before the commission, unlike some of his teammates and officials, but also proved adamant to wise counsel for him to render an unqualified apology to the state.
It was this buffoonery stance of his for close to two years since the commission presented its report and the subsequent Government White Paper on it that must have raised the ire of many Ghanaians over his supposed apology letter which surfaced early this week.
Several interpretations have been adduced for the apology coming at this time, with some saying it is just vintage Muntari, while others believe it is timed to meet a call-up for the 2017 AFCON in Gabon to enhance his marketability for international club football.
In spite of all these, we are not on the same page with the jury out there whose view is that Muntari’s apology should be treated with the contempt that it deserves and be thrown into the rubbish can.
The GRAPHIC SPORTS is of the view, which is also the position of some others, that the prodigal son’s apology be taken in good faith, but there should be zero tolerance for his return to the Stars.
For none can guarantee what next he can do on his return to the team. We dare surmise!