Overseas Ghanaian players excluded from 1982 Black Stars squad

Former Black Stars player George Alhassan has revealed why Ghana’s AFCON winning teams were made up of local players.

George Alhassan, a two-time AFCON winner with the Black Stars, explained that local players who signed with foreign clubs lost their places in the national team to local players.

He explained that the Black Stars management saw no reason to bring in a foreign player when there were equally talented players in the country.

George Alhassan attributed his inclusion in the 1982 AFCON squad, while playing for a club in Dubai, to the fact that the Saudi league was on break at the time.

“I was on vacation when I received the call-up from the national team for the AFCON. In my time, if you were not in the country, you were not called up. Your place was taken by a local base player,” Alhassan said during an interview on Angel TV .

He recalled: “For the 1980 Nigerian AFCON, I was in Dubai and did not receive an invitation because the authorities did not understand why they should spend money to bring in a player when they could select someone of similar quality locally.”

George Alhassan was the top scorer with four goals in the 1982 AFCON, which Ghana won in Libya. His first AFCON title with Ghana was the 1978 AFCON.

JNA/EK