GFA President Kurt Okraku opens up on Hudson-Odoi’s nationality switch

President of the Ghana Football Association Kurt ES Okraku has finally spoken about the federation’s aim of getting Ghanaian players born abroad play for the Black Stars, including Chelsea star Callum Hudson-Odoi . 

Hudson-Odoi is currently in the West African country for the summer holidays after winning the Champions League with Chelsea last month.

His presence in Ghana has sparked rumours of a possible nationality switch after he was omitted from England manager Gareth Southgate’s squad for the ongoing Euro 2020.

While others are advising Hudson-Odoi to reject any request to change his mind and play for Ghana, others are putting pressure on the FA to persuade the English-born player to represent the four-time Africa champions.

Last week, President of the country, H.E Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, urged 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 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.