Appiah confident of finally finding club
442 Staff - Monday 20 July 2009, 14:44
Ghana captain Stephen Appiah says he is confident of finally finding a new club soon, having not been registered to a team for more than a year.
The 28-year-old central midfielder has been a free agent since leaving Fenerbahce last year after enduring a lengthy spell on the sidelines with a serious knee injury.
In January, Appiah spent time on trial at Tottenham Hotspur, while Arsenal were believed to have considered offering the midfielder a deal while Cesc Fabregas was out injured and West Ham were also linked with the player.
However, nothing ever materialised.
And after also missing out on contracts with Russian champions Rubin Kazan and Italian giants AC Milan, the former Juventus powerhouse then revealed that he would not yet be able to sign for a new side, after FIFA found in Fenerbahce's favour following a complaint that Appiah walked out on them while still under contract.
“When you don’t have a job, you have to look for one. Right now, I am looking for one," he told TV network GTV.
When [Gennaro] Gattuso got injured, [Milan chief Adriano] Galliani called me and asked where I was and I said I was in Brescia. So, someone was sent over to check up on me. Training was good and everything was fine.
“I sat down with them but the problem is I still don’t have an Italian passport, so I can't go to AC Milan.
"In January, I was supposed to sign a contract with them but it didn’t happen because of my passport problem and that deal fell through."
But Appiah is now hopeful that there is a light at the end of the tunnel, with the midfielder believing that clubs were wrongly discouraged from signing him due to the hefty fine handed to him by FIFA after leaving Fenerbahce.
“There are a couple of teams and I would see what happens,” he said.
“Some people think it is my name that has been affecting my chances of getting a team, it’s not the name but it was the FIFA case.
"Some of the teams are scared. They didn’t know how much they were going to pay. They don’t how much FIFA says I should compensate Fenerbahce. So they were a little bit scared.
“They didn’t know that I am the one who has to pay. But now that they know that I am the one who has to pay Fenerbahce $2.3 million, I think things would be much easier now.”
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