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GFA reacts to former Black Stars coach Kwasi Appiah after salary outburst

The Ghana Football Association (GFA) has maintained that they are not the ones to foot the outstanding fees of the ex-Black Stars coach Kwasi Appiah but Sports Ministry.

Kwasi Appiah, 59, is demanding an amount owed him after his two year stint with the GFA came to an end in December.

Despite leaving his job months ago, he is still owed five months of salary and outstanding bonuses totalling around $180,000.

According to the coach, attempts to retrieve his money has proved futile and has instructed his lawyers to deal with the GFA.

"I decided to keep quiet on my salaries’ issues all these while but I think if you are working with someone and you are no more, the best way is to give the person whatever he deserves and there will be peace,” he is quoted as saying by Accra-based Starr FM.

“The question is how do I feed my family meanwhile I quite remember when they took over Dr. Kofi Amoah gave them $1,000,000 dollars and I even understand there is also some $500,000 from FIFA or whatever, the bottom line is you should look at the essential ones and try and sort it out.

“But it looks like they don’t care. This is money I have worked for and they are not telling me anything which I feel it doesn’t show sign of respect. So I have told my lawyers to deal with it.”

However, the Ghana Football Association’s Communications Director Henry Asante Twum, has made it clear that to the former coach that, the Sports Ministry are the ones to pay the arrears and not his outfit.

He says ‘angry’ Kwasi Appiah should have known better since he was a former employee of the Black Stars.

“The GFA does not pay the coach – it’s the state that pays the coach,” Twum told the BBC.

“The GFA is the employer of the head coach of the national team but his salary is paid by the state. He [Appiah] wrote to the GFA [demanding his outstanding salaries and bonuses] and we forwarded his letter to the [sports] ministry.

“It is the ministry that must pay him, not the GFA.

“Kwasi Appiah has been in and out of the Black Stars for so many years and he knows that it is not the FA that pays him.

“It’s very strange to read what is going round because it’s not the FA that pays the head coach of Black Stars, it is the Government of Ghana. That has been the constitution. The Government owes him.”

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