The president of the Ghana Football Association has finally opened up on the federation’s intent of getting Ghanaian players born abroad to play for the Black Stars, including Chelsea star Callum Hudson-Odoi
Hudson-Odoi’s presence in Ghana has sparked reports of a nationality switch after he was omitted from England manager Gareth Southgate’s squad for Euro 2020.
Ghanaians are putting pressure on the FA to convince the English-born player to represent the West African giants and last week President of the country, Nana Akufo-Addo, charged the Minister of Youth and Sports Mustapha Ussif to start the process of getting Hudson-Odoi to play for Ghana.
“We started the process of getting Ghanaian talents everywhere to represent Ghana, that included the collection of data on players from U-10 to senior level. The result is what we have now, we have Alex Djiku playing for Ghana, Tariqe Fosu also playing for Ghana and in the past we have had loads of players born in Europe play for Ghana,” Kurt Okraku on TV3’s Water Up Plus Show.
The FA president also explained the federation are in talks with UEFA Champions League winner Hudson-Odoi on several issues, including providing support for talents in the country.
“I mean I spoke with Callum before he got to Ghana, and we promised to speak again when we meet in Ghana, we have met, we’ve had discussions that centered beyond playing for Ghana, and he has a crazy ambition of helping kids in Ghana and this is what excites me the most,“he said.
“We are looking forward to working with Odoi and his family and many other players who are interested in representing their country,” Mr. Okraku added.
“We have a lot of them like that, we are talking to the technical team and the political authorities in getting them to play for Ghana,” he concluded.
Hudson-Odoi can switch nationality despite playing three times for England, per the new FIFA rules concerning change of country.