Former Asante Kotoko midfielder Daniel Nii Adjei has called on Ghanaians to discontinue tagging experienced footballers as ‘spent forces’.
Some section of Ghanaian football advocates describe players who in their late 20’s as old and waste.
But Adjei, who joined Moroccan giants Wydad Casablanca late last year after the expiration of his five-year contract with Congolese side TP Mazembe, has advised local fans to throw their support behind players who are approaching the twilight of their career to make the Ghana league competitive.
“Everybody is playing football to be able to cater for his family so if a player gets a bad day doesn’t mean he is an old player,” Nii Adjei told Happy FM.
“We always follow European football and when Manchester United announced the signing of Zlatan Ibrahimovic, look at the raves the club got for signing one of the experienced players in world football. Some claimed that he’s going to influence games with his experience, so why can’t we do same in Ghana but they’ll say the player is old.”
“If the player plays one game and he performs, they will say his experience helped the team to win but when he has a bad day; people will say he’s old and waste. These are some of the things that have negatively befallen our league. It is one of those things that’s retrogressing our competition.
“Our clubs are not delivering on the continental stage, which has culminated in us getting only one slot in both the Champions League and Confederation Cup competitions. But when you go to Congo, they have four slots and between the two countries who do you think should have more slots? We always pride ourselves to be one of the great football nations on the continent. Morocco also has four slots so I think if people do not put a stop to some of these comments, our football will still be where it is today.
“I spent five years with TP Mazembe and this is a club that has as many five players who have been with the club for more than eight years but I never heard their supporters call them old players. However, here we are calling players like Saddick Adams, Amos Frimpong and Eric Donkor old players. They should stop it for the betterment of the club and Ghana football,” Adjei deduced.
Nii Adjei won his sixth CAF continental crown over the weekend when he warmed the bench for Wydad Casablanca during their 1-0 victory over his former employers TP Mazembe in the CAF Super Cup.
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