Let’s bury 2014 World Cup scandal - Michael Essien

Ghana and Chelsea legend, Michael Essien has called on lovers of football to cremate what happened in the Brazil 2014 World Cup.

He told the media that four years is enough time to move on as a nation, rather than back track to find answers to what subjected Ghana to global ridicule.

Essien, 35, pointed out that the current happenings in Ghana football vindicates persons like Sulley Muntari and Kevin Prince Boateng who exited the tournament prematurely.

To Essien, their failure to give their account of what really happened in South America painted them (the trio) black.

However, he mentioned that revisiting the matter is needless and will have no positive impact on Ghana football.

Consequently, he has advised that those tasked to ensure normalcy and a revived system should speed up with the process to avoid complicating matters for the main characters involved-players and club owners.

The former Real Madrid/AC Milan man said “We have to leave it behind us and move forward because after four years, I don’t think it is worth discussing.”

He added “I was surprised that all those things came up but in any way, Ghanaians must always hear both sides of the story before criticising but not to wait until four years before they come back asking the other side what happened.”



Background

Ghana failed to progress past the Group stage in the Brazil World Cup. Muntari was expelled for assaulting a Black Stars Management Committee member, Moses Armah (Parker) while Boateng was sacked for using abusive language on Coach Kwasi Appiah at training.

The standoff resulted in Ghana airlifting US$3million to Brazil to settle player bonuses on the eve of the Portugal game, which brought shame to Ghana.