The uncle of Felix Afena-Gyan, a striker for Cremonese, has criticized the lack of communication surrounding his nephew's omission from the Black Stars squad.
Abrefa Gyan stated that after the effort that went into persuading the 20-year-old to play for Ghana, he deserved better treatment.
“We’ve all heard how difficult it was for the FA to approach Afena-Gyan and persuade him,” the player’s uncle told Kumasi-based Pure FM, as quoted by 3sports.
“We also know Mourinho’s intention to shape the boy and why he wasn’t ready to play for the national team at the time, but the authorities did everything they could to entice him into the team.
“And, as everyone can attest, his performance was excellent [against Nigeria]. However, if you are a coach who isn’t good at dealing with issues in the locker room, the team will always have issues.”
However, Afena-Gyan was dropped from the squad that faced Angola in a double-header 2023 AFCON qualifier, and despite reports that he rejected a call-up for the U23 AFCON qualifiers against Algeria, his uncle maintains that he should have been informed, even if he was not going to be invited to the senior team.
“Even if you wouldn’t give him an invite, you should go and explain things to him to psyche him up based on whatever you promised him to convince him. Assuring him of future call-ups, for example.
“Meeting his parents and agent to speak with him would be more beneficial than simply selecting your players and ignoring him, giving the impression that he can choose to play or not, and you don’t care,” he added.
