Ghana legend Asamoah Gyan has revealed his senior brother Baffour Gyan gave up on football after being left out of the Black Stars squad for the 2006 FIFA World Cup tournament in Germany.
The all-time topscorer for Ghana in an interview disclosed that, Baffour was instrumental in Ghana’s first World Cup qualification.
According to him, he played a chunk of the World Cup qualifiers which saw the West African powerhouse book a place at the mundial but was later dropped and put on the standby list whilst those who had not tasted the qualifiers nor played a single game for the team were taken to the World Cup.
He has therefore called on the technical handlers of the Black Stars to consider players who fought in the qualifiers when inviting players for the 2022 World Cup tournament to be staged in Qatar.
“It happened to my brother [Baffour Gyan]. In 2006 [when Ghana qualified for the World Cup for the first time], he played 90 per cent of the qualifiers and then they brought strikers who had never tasted one game [for the tournament in Germany]. He was on the standby [list],” he said.
“That was when my brother gave up on football. He doesn’t follow football, he doesn’t watch it, he doesn’t like it, he’s purely a businessman. Sometimes people have to be treated fairly.”
Gyan added: “No player would like to be [left out], especially having played all the games. When these players come, they don’t even play one game. They just sit on the bench, get their bonuses and go, they don’t compete.
“If they bring these players, they have to show us something, they have to prove to people that they deserve to get into the team, that’s all I want. We all want the national team to be better.”
Gyan is Ghana’s all time topscorer with 51 goals out of 109 matches.
He has featured in three World Cup tournament for Ghana from 2006, 2010 and 2014.
With six goals at the World Cup, he holds the record as the African with the highest number of goals surpassing Cameroon legend Rodger Milla with his goal against Portugal in 2014.