Phew…Appiah Will Still Get Paid

For a while, things in Ghana were in a bit of an uproar when rumors leaked out that Fenerbahce would suspend Stephen Appiah’s contract because the injury he picked up, a blood clot to his knee, will keep him out of action for at least six months.

Appiah, an 8m signing from Juventus, has featured six times in the Turkish Superleague this year because last summer, he had undergone knee ligament surgery. So it’s understandable why Fenerbahce would be a little frustrated. Still, freezing the guy’s contract and preventing him from being paid is going too far, especially when those aforementioned injuries were picked up because of Appiah playing for Fenerbahce.

Thankfully, Fenerbahce claim that those reports are lies. They will not be freezing Appiah’s contract; instead, they will continue to honor it, though they will leave him out of their squad for the second half of the season so that they can make room for another foreign born player.

Obviously, either something was lost in translation from the first article, but I would not be surprised if Fenerbahce had thought about it. These days, clubs are getting increasingly frustrated as they watch players sit out for months injured, all the while still picking up hefty paychecks. All I can say is that I’m glad that Appiah didn’t pick up his injury while playing for Ghana, which might have prompted Fenerbahce into demanding compensation from the Ghana Football Association - that would have been a can of worms everyone at FIFA, UEFA, and the now defunct G14 would like to avoid.