Captain of Ghana’s senior national men’s football team André Dede Ayew has apologized for the team’s poor showing at the ongoing 2023 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) in La Côte D’Ivoire that resulted in their early exit from the competition.
The Black Stars commenced its campaign at the tournament on a terrible note, losing to Cape Verde in their opener and drawing against the Pharaohs of Egypt in their second game.
Despite the unimpressive results from the two matches, they still stood chance of making it to the Round of 16 if they won their game against Mozambique.
The match, which was played on January 22, 2024, saw the Black Stars led from first half to second half.
But just when it was few minutes to end time, a foul and an avoidable blunder committed by André Ayew and the goalkeeper Richard Ofori respectively enabled the Mozambicans to equalize, crashing the team’s prospects of progressing.
Since their exit from the tournament which many described as shameful, some players have publicly rendered apologies individually to the nation.
In a video shared on social media, André Ayew, who is leader of the squad, apologized and took full responsibility for the debacle.
He acknowledged that the team failed to live up expectations and assured of better performance next time.
“As the captain of the squad, I take full responsibility for what happened on the pitch, for the playing body, we should have done better. We should have made sure that we bring results to our nation.
But in football, these are things that happen, these are things that make you stronger and what doesn’t kill you always makes you become a stronger person individually and collectively,” he stated.
While apologizing for the pain their abysmal performance has caused the nation, he expressed confidence that the team will learn from its failure and rise to shine again.
“We are Ghana and everybody who knows me knows that I’m never going to give up meaning we are not never going to give up and we are going to ride and shine again”.
