adminAccording to Confederation of African Football rules, Mensah will have a two-game ban. Mensah, 29, will sit out the next two crucial games. Options for Ghana in his place are John Boye, Jonathan Mensah and Lee Addy. Should Ghana fail to make it past the group stage, Mensah’s Nations Cup campaign would be over already.
The red card is John Mensah’s second in his African Cup career, having taken one for the team similarly in 2008 against Nigeria. On that occasion, Ghana won 2-1 to advance to the semi-final.
It is not clear if Ghana will appeal the decision, which appeared very right from the referee. As for Mensah himself, he said: “I have no problem with the red card, the referee made his decision and that’s football.”
Meanwhile Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue, son of Equatorial Guinea’s state president, has honoured his promise to pay the Nations Cup co-hosts’ squad $1 million in bonuses. But questions have been raised about the cash.
The National Lightning, as the country’s national football team is known, won 1-0 but left it late with Javier Balboa earning the win just three minutes from time.
Balboa himself earned an extra $20 000 for scoring the goal on Saturday, as did Ivan Bolado.
Bolado had the ball in the Libyan net in the first half only for the goal to be disallowed, but Obiang overlooked this as he handed over the money.
Obiang, the country’s agriculture minister, had promised the players the money if they beat Libya in the opening match of the Africa Cup of Nations. He handed over a cheque to captain Juvenal Edjogo on Tuesday afternoon.
Obiang also pledged more bonuses to the squad, who play Senegal next on Wednesday, should they continue their Group A success.
“It is remarkable that the president’s son has managed to find such a large amount of cash to help motivate his team to win. But the question must be, where has this money come from?” Adrian Lovett, Europe director
for the campaign Group One, asked .
Equatorial Guinea, the lowest-ranked team at the finals according to Fifa, currently lie second in Group A, trailing the Zambian group leaders on goals scored alone.
Obiang refused to divulge how much money he would give the national football squad, but news of future bonuses may boost the players ahead of their match against Senegal.
This is the co-hosts’ final match in Bata, the Equatorial Guinean city on the African mainland, with their last group match against Zambia taking place in the capital Malabo on 29 January.
Online Reporter