The story of how a Ghanaian pageantry queen met a football star

GhanaWeb Feature

Arguably, the most popular celebrity marriage in the country, the love story between model Menaye Donkor and former Black Stars midfielder Sulley Muntari is admired by many Ghanaians.

The model and Sulley's Muntari's relationship first hit the limelight after they tied the knot 13 years ago and they are often seen as the ideal celebrity couple.

Menaye Donkor and Sulley Muntari's 13-year marriage has produced two children with the eldest being called Jamal Krasie Muntari while the name of the younger one is yet to be made public.

While many have wondered how and where the love story started, Menaye Donkor in several interviews has said that she is one of the beneficiaries of the Black Stars' first-ever qualification to the World Cup in 2006 as she met her then-would-be husband during the tournament.

She said that she probably wouldn't be having Sulley Muntari as a husband had it not been her cousin and celebrated actress Ama K. Abebrese who introduced her to the player at a hotel lobby in Germany.

Menaye recounted that the introduction was all that Sulley Muntari needed to set the ball rolling for what has so far become thirteen years of controversy-free marriage

Read her narration in the post below:

“I met him (Sulley) in Germany, Berlin to be specific, I was on vacation with my sister, and my cousin is Ama K. Abebrese. At that time we were in Europe so we went to watch the football match and I met him. I met him in the Hotel lobby, I think we were having dinner.

No (I didn’t set out to go and look for a footballer) because I didn’t know anything about football but the funny thing is my elder brother (Prince) liked football a lot. During Ghana’s qualification to the World Cup I was clueless because I had no idea how Ghana even ended up at the competition.

So I decided to visit my cousin (Ama) in the UK and my sister and we were together so we decided to go watch a game but Ama knew Sulley already so when we saw Sulley, Ama did an introduction and he (Sulley) tried to obviously make his moves. He always called me through Ama for about a Month or so.

Ama then advised me to be friendly with him because he was a nice person and we never know since I am into Charity works and he is also a footballer he might be interested in my work. So I did not discriminate anyone who could help me in my charity work.

He was a hero in Ghana so it was even an opportunity for my charity kids to even have a one-on-one interaction with him.

Sulley and I had something in common which is empathy for people, we have pity on people and that was the more reason I was doing the charity and the way he just got on board to support and my nephews at home. Everything was all about uncle Sulley. So for me you don’t have to like me only, you also have to like people around me and I think that’s how he was able to win me over.

I didn’t want to be in a relationship because I wanted to travel and see the World, I wanted to be independent and again I didn’t believe long distance relationship works. Two years into the relationship he wanted us to get married but I wasn’t ready because of a lot of factors. I can’t point them out but I was just not ready. I think I wanted to get to know him better. Two years was not enough for me so I wanted to wait for a while.

We were actually best friends so after four years into our relationship we started talking about marriage again and at that point, I felt I was ready," she said.

Author: Joel Eshun

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