Experienced football administrator George Afriyie has expressed sadness over the death of winger Christian Atsu.
Christian Atsu was found deceased under the rubble following the devastating earthquake that occurred two weeks ago, according to his agent on Saturday morning.
Ghanaians took to social media to pay tribute to Atsu, who played 65 matches between 2012 and 2019, including an outstanding performance at the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations, where he was named player of the tournament.
Atsu played for various European clubs, such as Chelsea, FC Porto, Newcastle United, Everton, and Bournemouth.
"First of all Christian Atsu is a player I have known for a long time from Feyenoord Academy to joining Yartey's team before going to Portugal. I know him because Yartey's junior brother Ishmael Yartey is my first player that I sent to Portugal so I have a strong bond and relationship with Atsu and the Yartey family," George Afriyie told Oman FM as monitored by Footballghana.com
"Fortunately for me in 2015 I was appointed chairman of the Black Stars management committee and Avram Grant was the coach Atsu played a key role to get us to the final and we lost on penalties to Ivory Coast. He eventually won the best player of the game and became the Afcon 2015 tournament best player moving on from there we have travelled with him Afcon 2017 I was still the chairman of the Black Stars management committee,"
"The matches we played world cup qualifiers and all Atsu was an integral part of the team so he is someone that I have a good relationship with. My administrative manager who is also my personal assistant Emmanuel Frimpong writes about Atsu. My friend Tony Appiah has been Atsu's manager since 2011 to 2019 eight years. It was during his period and Atsu signed a contract with Chelsea, Bournemouth, Newcastle it was all under Tony Appiah who is my friend so Atsu is a very special player to me from the people I have mentioned. If you know someone who knows me and knows the people close to me he will understand where I am coming from,"
"I currently have players in Malatyaspor another city that was hit by the earthquake so my three players Godfred Donsah, Osman Haki and Philip Awuku Gameli all play for Malatyaspor so when the earthquake happened fortunately for two of them Donsah and Haki they were in Istanbul. But Philip was in Malatya the building he was in vibrated very severely and he jumped from third floor to land on the ground and their goalkeeper who went home to sleep is dead,"
"So when I heard it I couldn't sit wait so I had to rush and come so Tony also called from London that he wants to meet me so we arrived yesterday hoping that this morning we have booked to Ankara that's were the embassy is. Yesterday I sent the ambasssodor message already I had already sent a communique that we coming to monitor things. And we woke up this morning our flight is not even ready then we heard the news it was all over in Turkey. We are still here very sad and broken hearted,"