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Former Black Stars center-back, Rashid Sumaila has affirmed his undying love for his former clubs, Kumasi Asante Kotoko and Cape Coast Mysterious Ebusua Dwarfs, over the role the clubs played in his career as a footballer.
According to the entertaining defender, there’s no way he can retire from active football without playing for his boyhood club Ebusua Dwarfs and Kumasi Asante Kotoko, as he has promised himself and that of his fans.
He stressed, “I will surely fulfill my promise of playing for Dwarfs and Kotoko before I retire from football because I personally made that assurance and will surely see to its fulfillment.”
“Though I’m preparing such that when the opportunity comes for me to travel out and play I might, but I will definitely return to these clubs before calling it quit from football, because I will not be retiring at any foreign club,” Rashid Sumaila established.
The enterprising center-back echoed this in an interview with Alex Kojo Mensah Eshun on Cape Coast-based Akwaaba Radio in a discussion into his future plans for the game he cherishes the most.
On the issue of him not retiring from football after almost two seasons from active football, he replied, “I would have officially made a public announcement by issuing a letter of my retirement from professional football, in case I had retired as speculated,” he clarified.
Born and nurtured in Cape Coast, Rashid Sumaila, 32, began his playing career with Cape Coast Adisadel-based Colts side, Astronomers, where he excelled with his sublime performance before joining then Division One side, Cape Coast Venomous Vipers, in 2008.
His tenacity and zeal on the field of play had him tipped as the next Sergio Ramos in Ghana’s football with his consistency in the central defensive role, which got him signed by then Ghana Premier League side Ebusua Dwarfs in the 2009-10 season, but got the opportunity to make his senior debut in the 2010-11 season, where he emerged as the country’s Best Defender at the end of the season.
Sumaila’s accolades and appraisals chopped, handed him his maiden call-up into the Black Stars squad on November 7, 2011, in a double header against the ‘Leone Stars’ of Sierra Leone and ‘The Panthers’ of Gabon, upon passing through the mill with the national Under-20 and Under-23 sides.
As versatile as he is, his unfading performance got him signed by the porcupine warriors in the 2012-13 league season, where he helped the club to win the Ghana Premier League with his calculated tackles and resilience in the heart of defense.
His progressive career as a footballer, has seen him feature at the highest level in the game, talk of the World Cup, European competitions, and African competitions, having featured for clubs like Red Star Belgrade, Mamelodi Sundowns, Al-Gharafa, among many others, with yet a dint of agility still left in him to add some numbers to his featured games in football.
Rashid Sumaila chanced on the opportunity to disclose his passion to unearth a new breed of football talents in the country through his second-tier club, Adisadel Youth Football Club, and bemoaned the way football is currently run in Ghana as there should been a better improvement in the administration of the game, compared to his peak days in football.
He again took on the mileage and advised budding footballers to be disciplined and take their training much seriously, since all they envision is to become footballers in the future.
Source: Akwaabatvgh.com//ERIC ANNAN
