How the African teams sabotaged the continent's 2014 world cup hopes.

At the beginning of what looked like the year for African soccer in the world cup, the spirits were high, the players seemed ready and set to give it their best. Fans were highly optimistic. Everyone knew the stacks were high.  The players promised fans nothing but the best.

The best as it were, saw all African teams crash out without any reaching the semi finals at least.  More worrying still were Ghana and Ivory Coast who crashed out in the group stage.

Crashed out most appallingly and disgracefully with the revelations that again this year , the issue of money , match fixing and  corruption had played a big role  in the shameful underperformances of these two – Ivory Coast and Ghana.

Ghana; the Black stars lost their opening game with the US  and  ‘luckily’ drew 2- 2 with Germany . At this point restored the hopes of fans and the entire continent .  Just a few days to the ultimate decider, the match that would make or break the teams stake in the world cup, the ugly face of money , fight and the washing of their dirty linen on social media surfaced.  Allegedly, the President had to send over $3 million in cash to prevent players from revolting in that match with Portugal as it was reported that players were about to boycott the match should the money not reach them before the match.

According to reports, the Deputy Sports minister Joseph Yamin told Citi FM, “The players insisted that they will want physical cash. The government had to mobilize the money and a chartered flight to Brazil. The money  is in excess of $3 million.”

“There are some issues concerning money and the management and the government of the country are trying to sort it out and hopefully everything will be sorted out in 2-3 hours’ time,” he told reporters.
However, hours before the most crucial match, the Black stars announced the suspension of two of their heavy stars – Kevin Prince Boateng and Sulley Muntari, both sent home and suspended indefinitely by the FA.

Muntari reportedly was involved in an unprovoked physical attack on a member of the FA committee. He reportedly slapped Moses Armah Parker before pursuing him with a broken bottle.  While Boateng had been alleged to have been involved in a vulgar verbal row with the team’s coach Kwesi Appiah.  Despite the $3 million cash injected, it still wasn’t enough to quench the tension. Speculations are that it was sharing of the money that aggravated the later tension.