Two Ghanian players have been suspended indefinitely and will not be allowed to play against Portugal on Thursday. Midfielders Sulley Muntari and Kevin-Prince Boateng have been sent home following separate alleged verbal and physical altercations with members of the organization.
The Ghana Football Association released a statement on Thursday announcing that Muntari has been indefinitely suspended in the wake of “his unprovoked physical attack on an Executive Committee member of the GFA and a management member of the Black Stars, Mr. Moses Armah on Tuesday 24th June, 2014 during a meeting.” Ghana Sports Online shared more details of the alleged incident.
Muntari is alledged to have slapped a member of the Ghana National Team’s management committee by name Moses Armah and even chased with with broken bottles at the hotel over disagreements with appearance fees and other bonuses owed the players.
According to a separate statement from the GFA, Boateng has been suspended due to “vulgar verbal insults targeted at coach Kwesi Appiah during the team’s training session” earlier this week. Boateng publicly criticized Appiah after Ghana’s loss to the US and has reportedly had “several altercations” with the coach during World Cup training.
Turmoil has surrounded the Ghanian national team since the World Cup began. Earlier this week, Ghana had to send a plane full of cash to the players after they threatened to boycott their game against Portugal if they were not paid $3 million (as a team) in appearance fees. Appiah admitted the drama surrounding the team has taken its toll.
“Every coach wouldn’t love to be in this situation where players are requesting moneys, considering the fact you are playing in a very important game tomorrow,” Appiah said Wednesday, via the New York Times. “For the past two days have had no sleep. I could not close my eyes.”
The suspensions of Muntari and Boateng could be good news for the US. Jurgen Klinsmann’s squad automatically advances to the knockout stage with a win or draw, but can still advance via tiebreakers with a loss. If Portugal beats Ghana by a small margin and the US is not blown out by Germany, they should still hold the goal differential tiebreaker over Portugal.
H/T Deadspin
