Ghana head coach Carlos Queiroz has flatly refused to comment on the dramatic exclusion of star midfielder Thomas Partey, whose visa application to enter Canada was rejected on the eve of the FIFA World Cup.<\/p>\n
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Immigration officials reportedly turned down the Arsenal midfielder’s paperwork amid allegations that he misled authorities regarding ongoing criminal proceedings against him in the United Kingdom. The shock legal hurdle means the Black Stars will have to navigate their crucial Group L opener against Panama at the Toronto Stadium without their key midfield anchor.<\/p>\n
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When pressed on the issue during the pre-match press conference, Queiroz shut down the conversation completely, choosing to distance himself from the off-pitch scandal and focus purely on the squad at his disposal.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
“We have our plan set and we are in this moment counting with all the 26 players we have in the squad,” Queiroz insisted. “Tomorrow we will make a decision who will be in the starting lineup. No particular comments on that and it’s not necessary to make comments. The story is open, freedom of speech is open, and I will not speak to it. My business is to play with the cards in front of me and how to approach the game.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The high-profile omission leaves a massive void in the Ghanaian midfield just hours before they kick off their global campaign, forcing Queiroz into a late tactical reshuffle for the Panama clash.<\/p>\n
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–ChannelAfrica–<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":37329,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[305,20],"class_list":["post-37328","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-special-projects","news-type-sport","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Ghana head coach Carlos Queiroz has flatly refused to comment on the dramatic exclusion of star midfielder Thomas Partey","published_date":"2026-06-17 09:10:13","news_description":"Ghana head coach Carlos Queiroz has flatly refused to comment on the dramatic exclusion of star midfielder Thomas Partey","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/37328","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/37328\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37330,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/37328\/revisions\/37330"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=37328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}