Ghana: Black Queens demand their unpaid bonuses

Ghana take on Zambia this Friday, 23 February, in the first leg of the third round of Olympic qualifying. But what frame of mind will the Black Queens be in for this game? There is discontent within the squad over unpaid bonuses. The Ghana players are claiming their bonuses for the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers and the first two rounds of Olympic qualifying. The Ministry of Sports owes each player 7500 euros. And the chair of the Black Queens management committee, Gifty Oware-Mensah, is urging the authorities to resolve the issue as quickly as possible.

The chair of the Black Queens management committee, Gifty Oware-Mensah, had urged the authorities to resolve the issue as quickly as possible. "This is not the first time the ministry has owed bonuses to players. Most of the time, it takes a while before the nation is able to pay these bonuses. We are waiting for the ministry to come and pay in full, as it promised," Oware-Mensah told Newsday on the BBC World Service.

GFA promises to resolve the issue

Rumours had also circulated on social media about a possible boycott by the Ghana players ahead of the Zambia game. Oware-Mensah dismissed the claims. She explained: "I was at the camp with (the team), I had meetings with them. We got this information on social media that the team would boycott the match. We had a few conversations with them. It seemed it was not the girls who were saying it, but concerned Ghanaians, who felt the girls deserved their bonuses, who had put these things on social media. 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 for Youth and Sports, Mustapha Yusif, also visited the team. Yusif assured the players of "the ministry's commitment to keeping all the promises made" and added that "all outstanding bonuses will be cleared", in a statement published on the GFA website.