‘There is only one Asamoah Gyan and they know it’ – Ghana legend responds to Asante Kotoko booing incident

Ghana striker Asamoah Gyan was unperturbed by hostility received from fans during Saturday’s Ghana Premier League encounter between his Legon Cities side and Asante Kotoko.

The veteran Black Stars forward was a second-half substitute as Emmanuel Gyamfi scored to give visiting Kotoko a 1-0 win at the Accra Sports Stadium.

He came on in the 75th minute, when Legon were desperately throwing everyone forward in search of an equaliser, and immediately drove a free-kick just over the bar with his first touch of the ball.

“There is only one Asamoah Gyan and they [fans] know it. They should even be grateful that I am playing in the Ghana Premier League,” Gyan, who has also been heavily criticised for putting on weight, said in response to the booing incident during the post-match press conference.

FACT 🤷🏾‍♂️🤷🏾‍♂️🤷🏾‍♂️ pic.twitter.com/8zzLhF0S1G

— ASAMOAH GYAN (@ASAMOAH_GYAN3) May 1, 2021

But why was Gyan, who is yet to score a goal in the GPL since joining Legon, booed and which group of fans were behind the act?

“It’s funny, when he was warming up, some of the fans were cheering him but when he was coming onto the pitch, then they started booing him. I was shocked,” Philip Sitsope Atsrim, a StarTimes commentator of the game, told Goal.

“I didn’t know why they were booing him. But the point is that there were a lot more Kotoko fans at the venue than Legon Cities fans. So the thinking here is that the Kotoko fans are seeing Gyan coming on at a time when they are winning and they were trying to maybe unsettle him even before he gets on the pitch, so that he doesn’t get the equaliser or the goal that level the tie. So maybe that’s it.

“But there is an untold side of this:  Gyan is somewhat fast becoming unpopular with the Ghanaian fans. In recent times, he’s been in the news for some of the wrong reasons, had a fight at the tennis court, recently was caught on video confronting a fan who allegedly had rained insults on him. He left the inner perimeter to the stands to confront the fan, so there’s that aspect as well.

“But in the game, Kotoko fans were more, Gyan was coming on, they felt they could put him off by booing him, so he doesn’t get the leveler. So there are two sides of it.”

The decisive goal of the game came in the 13th minute when Gyamfi’s touch on Fabio Gama’s free-kick put the ball in the back of the net.

“We lost a bit of concentration in the first half and they were able to capitalise on it and they scored. I think we also had a couple of chances we could have buried,” former Sunderland, Rennes and Udinese striker Gyan said after Saturday’s game.

“The referees were making too many mistakes, I don’t blame them, they are human but you cannot make too many mistakes in such a very tough game. We are anxious, we want to take three points, we wanted to do something in the game.

“I think I had a clear penalty, the referee was about a hundred meters away which I think it’s not right for a referee to stay that far.

“Because with my experience, I think referees need to follow every situation, everywhere the ball is the referee should be about ten meters away. But the referee was I think far away.”

Gyan, a strong Kotoko fan, is certainly not the most likeable personality among Kotoko supporters as he swerved the Porcupine Warriors to sign for Legon on his return to the Ghana Premier League in October last year.

The 35-year-old had long before his return iterated a desire to fulfil a personal dream of playing for Kotoko before hanging up his boots.

He looked headed for Kotoko until Legon took over the move at the last hour to sign him on transfer deadline day.