Afriyie Barnieh removed from Black Galaxies as Hearts Of Oak give up on contract extension talks with the player

After a fruitless attempt to extend the contract of striker Daniel Afriyie Barnieh, Hearts of Oak have given up.

In the end, the team chose to remove Barnieh’s name off its roster of players actively training with the Black Galaxies.

A highly placed source in Hearts told the Daily Graphic on Tuesday that Barnieh is free to depart if he so desire because the club had finally given up trying to persuade the 21-year-old striker to renew his contract.

The source said Hearts could no longer countenance the ingrate character of the player and that if that was how he wished to pay back a club that brought him to prominence, he was at liberty to leave.

“He (Barnieh) has still not signed a new contract and I had a discussion with the board chairman that if he doesn’t sign, nobody should call him; he should be allowed to go but his conscience would be his own judge.

“If you can treat a club that brought you to prominence that way, then he can go because we made all the efforts we could for over three months, explaining to him the need to sign but he kept on dilly-dallying with us with his so-called manager, so if he wants to go he can go,” it said.

The source intimated that because the player did not want to play for the club, that was why he was dragging his feet in signing a new contract. Due to that, they had excluded him from the list of players the club submitted to the Ghana Football Association (GFA).

“He wouldn’t like to sign and the only reason he wouldn’t like to sign is that he doesn’t want to play for the club, but one thing I’m sure about is that his name is not on the list of players we submitted to the FA,” it further revealed.

Barnieh’s contract is due to expire at the end of this month and the player has refused to pen his signature to a new deal as reports indicate that several foreign clubs are pursuing him.