With 24 hours to go before facing Zambia in the 3rd round of Olympic qualifying, the Ghanaian national team has been rocked by a dispute over bonuses. The Ministry of Sport owes each player 75,000 euros. The Black Queens were not paid during the AFCON 2025 qualifiers and the first two rounds of the Olympic qualifiers.
Ghana take on Zambia this Friday, February 23, in the first leg of the third round of Olympic qualifying. But what mood will the Black Queens be in going into the game? Teeth are gnashing within the squad due to unpaid bonuses. The Ghanaians are claiming their bonuses from the AFCON 2025 qualifiers, as well as the first two rounds of the Olympic qualifiers. The Ministry of Sport owes each player 7,500 euros. And the chairman of the Black Queens management committee, Gifty Oware-Mensah, is urging the authority to resolve the problem as quickly as possible.
And the chairman of the Black Queens management committee, Gifty Oware-Mensah, had urged the authority to resolve the problem as quickly as possible. "This is not the first time the Ministry has owed players bonuses.Most of the time, it takes some time before the nation is able to pay these bonuses.We are waiting for the Ministry to come and pay in full as they promised," Oware-Mensah told Newsday on the BBC World Service.GFA promises to solve the problemRumors have also circulated on social networks about a possible boycott of Ghana's players against Zambia. Oware-Mensah refutes these allegations.
She explains: "I've been to camp with (the team), I've had meetings with them. We got this information on social networks that the team would boycott the match. We had a few conversations with them. It seemed that it wasn't the girls who were saying it, but concerned Ghanaians, who felt that the girls deserved their bonuses, who had put these things on social networks. At the meeting, there was no talk of a boycott. There was no tension in the camp."
The President of the Ghana Football Association (GFA), Kurt Simeon-Okraku, and the Minister of Youth and Sports, Mustapha Yusif, paid a visit to the team. Yusif assured the players of "the Ministry's commitment to keep all promises made" and added that "all unpaid bonuses will be cleared", in a statement published on the GFA website.
