Posted by Former Ghana Football Association (GFA) president, Awuah Nyamekye has opened up on why Tony Baffoe was named as Ghana’s captain for the 1992 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) final against Côte d’Ivoire.
Ghana’s hope of wining it 4th AFCON trophy took a nosedive after losing 11-10 on penalties to Côte d’Ivoire. The game after 90 minutes and extra time ended scoreless.
Ghana went into the game without substantive captain Abedi Pele. The ‘maestro’ was suspended for the game due to accumulation of yellow cards.
Anthony Yeboah who was the vice captain was expected to lead the team in the final, but surprisingly Tony Yeboah was snubbed and Anthony Baffoe was tasked to lead the team.
In an interview with Don Summer of Angel FM in Kumasi, the former FA boss opened up on the issue, disclosing why Tony Baffoe was named captain at the expense of vice captain Tony Yeboah.
“In fact, the FA appealed to Abedi Pele’s suspension with an amount of $600 but it couldn’t materialized so he was definitely going to miss the final and so we needed to select a player who will lead the team with Abedi’s absence.”
“So we selected three people to dialogue and come out with a captain. They were Benjamin Larson (Management Committee Member), Alhaji Mekano (Welfare Officer) and the coach, Otto Pfister. So it was these three people that recommended Tony Baffoe and we support it and this does not mean we hate Tony Yeboah”
“If Kwesi Appiah was available for the final there wouldn’t be an issue because he could have lead the team since he was the assistant. However, we needed to search for a compromised captain that will be acceptable for that particular match and the player we settled on was Tony Baffoe” he said.
The former GFA President also added that Anthony Yeboah was not the assistant captain of the team.
“I have heard people saying Tony Yeboah was the assistant captain if Abedi Pele is the captain and Kwesi Appiah is there, who will be the assistant captain, is it not Kwesi Appiah? He quizzed
“I want to put it on record, Kwesi Appiah was the assistant captain, not Anthony Yeboah. How come Tony became assistant to Pele”
“We didn’t make Kwesi Appiah the General Captain when we handed the armband to Abedi and Appiah was the assistant to Abedi. If anyone says (Appiah) was the general captain, then it is the imagination of that person”, he added.
Awuah Nyamekye was the president of the FA between 1990 to 1992.