Ghana midfielder Thomas Partey said he was “ready to play” against England on Tuesday after missing his side’s World Cup \u200bopener, with the midfielder’s return bringing renewed scrutiny over \u200chis participation in the tournament.<\/p>\n
Partey was unable to travel to Canada for Ghana’s 1-0 victory over Panama in Toronto after his visa application was refused, but \u200bhe has since joined the squad ahead of the Group \u200bL match against England in Boston.<\/p>\n
Partey told reporters at \u2060Ghana’s training base in Providence, Rhode Island, on Monday that \u200bhe had put the disappointment behind him and was focused on \u200bhelping his team.<\/p>\n
“I think for me now it’s part of football,” Partey said. “Things happen outside football that you cannot control but for me now I \u200bfeel OK and I am ready to play.”
\nThe former Arsenal \u200bmidfielder said he was looking forward to facing familiar opponents from his time \u200cin \u2060London, including England internationals Declan Rice and Bukayo Saka.<\/p>\n
“I’m really happy to see them again,” he said. “I hope they are going to bring their best and try to give ourselves also the \u200bopportunity to play \u200bagainst the best \u2060and try to compete and enjoy the game.”<\/p>\n
The 33-year-old also welcomed the prospect of a midfield \u200bbattle with Rice.
\n“I know it’s not going to \u200bbe easy,” \u2060Partey said. “(They have) very good players and I am happy to play against them.”<\/p>\n
Partey is facing seven charges of rape and two \u2060of \u200bsexual assault in Britain. He has denied \u200bthe allegations.<\/p>\n
England’s Football Association has said England players will not answer questions about Partey.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
–Reuters–<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":34840,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[20],"class_list":["post-37769","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-sport","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"England's Football Association has said England players will not answer questions about Partey.","published_date":"","news_description":"England's Football Association has said England players will not answer questions about Partey.","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/37769","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\/37769\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37770,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/37769\/revisions\/37770"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=37769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}