Essien disregarded Coach Konadu’s orders — Appiah

The head coach of Ghana’s national team, Kwasi Appiah, has confirmed that midfielder Michael Essien refused to participate in the pre-game warm-up ahead of the Black Stars final Group G game against Portugal.

The Stars coach was speaking at a press conference held in the wake of the Stars disastrous 2014 World Cup campaign.

Appiah said he was attending to other issues during the Stars warm-up at the Estádio Nacional de Brasilia but was subsequently informed by his technical team that the 31-year-old Essien; who was named as a substitute for the game, did not take part in the training.

“My assistant, Maxwell Konadu takes charge of the warm-up, so I wasn’t present myself. But when I returned, a member of my technical team told me Essien didn’t train. 

I have written about his actions in my report and the management was supposed to take action, but because  the tournament was over for us after the Portugal game, nothing was done, Appiah stated.

However, the coach stressed that Essien’s punishment would be determined by the management of the Ghana Football Association (GFA). 

“I will leave it to the management team to decide his punishment,” he added..

The GFA president, Kwasi Nyantakyi, also confirmed that he had watched a video in which  Essien’s AC Milan teammate, Sulley Muntari, was seen smoking a shisha pipe.

“I came across the video two days ago, but from what I saw the incident occurred in the Netherlands not in Brazil as widely speculated,” he added. 

The GFA boss also disclosed that, Ghana would in future require players to sign performance contracts for future tournaments to avoid the problems encountered at the World Cup over payments.

He said, "Players who are called-up would be made to sign contracts to forestall any problems like those that happened in Brazil.

"The contracts will spell out clearly all camp rules and other conditions." The GFA stressed that it would revert to "signed agreements" and bank transfers for the  payment of bonuses.