Former goalkeepers' trainer of the Ghana national football team Abukari Damba has thrown his support behind James Kwesi Appiah for the vacant Black Stars coaching role.

Appiah, 62, led the Black Stars to the 2014 World Cup in Brazil but mutually parted ways with the national team after Ghana failed to qualify from the group stages. The former national team gaffer has confirmed his desire to return for the third time, however.

The Black Stars immediate former manager, Otto Addo, resigned from his role after Ghana’s early elimination at the 2022 FIFA World cup in Qatar, and with few months to the start of the AFCON qualifiers. 

In an exclusive interview with Class Sports on Saturday January 21, Abukari Damba expressed belief that Kwesi Appiah is the right man for the national team.

“Kwesi Appiah has been around for donkey years. We know what he has done. He has records to prove and records to show, especially in terms of player scouting and identification of talent. We all know the players he brought into the national team who excelled and are now poster boys like Mohammed Kudus,’’ he said.

In April 2017, Appiah was re-appointed as the head coach of the Ghana national team, replacing former Chelsea manager, Avram Grant. He was then axed in January 2020 by the Ghana Football Association (GFA) led by Kurt Okraku and with Appiah confirming his desired return to the role, Damba sees no reason why the former cannot work with the very people that sacked him.

“We don’t need to be friends to work together. The assumption that the current administration ousted him does not matter,” he added.

The GFA is expected to name a new gaffer for the Black Stars before Ghana’s start of the 2023 AFCON Qualifiers in March.