The Black Stars will be without midfielder Mohammed Kudus when they take on Mali and Qatar on October 9 and 12 respectively.

This is because the teenager and three other African players with the club have been blocked from joining their national team.

Ajax had stated earlier that Kudus was injured hence could not honor Akonnor’s call-up but the GFA insisted on him travelling to Turkey to be assessed by the team’s doctors.

But reports in the Dutch media state that Kudus, Andre Onana of Cameroon, Morocco duo Zakaria Labyad and Noussair Mazraoui have been told by the club not to join up with the national teammates.

This, according to the reports is due to fears of the players contracting the coronavirus or coming into close contact with someone in their national team camp which will rule them out for at least fourteen days.

Kudus’s absence is another big blow to Akonnor who has already lost some key players to the aforementioned reason and visa issues.

Lumor Agbenyenu, Richard Ofori and John Antwi have been ruled out of the games, leaving Akonnor to hand call ups to two new players.

Turkey-based players Caleb Ekuban and Joseph Paintsil have both been handed late call ups.

The team has also been boosted with the arrivals of newly-acquired Arsenal midfielder Thomas Partey.

Partey joined his colleague on Wednesday after completing his transfer to Arsenal.

The game against Mali is at 5:00 pm on Friday and will be live on www.ghanaweb.com