Rangers star Mohamed Diomande looks set to choose Ivory Coast over Ghana in the battle for his international future.
The 22-year-old was called up this week for both the Ivory Coast's Under 23s team and the Ghana full squad for friendly matches.
He has no family ties to Ghana, although he holds a Ghanaian passport because he was brought up in the country and attended their Right to Dream Academy.
Ghana were expecting him to turn up to their Marrakech base for their training camp ahead of friendlies against Nigeria and Uganda after paying for flights for him, but he has yet to show.
And top football officials at the Ivorian FA reportedly urgently contacted Diomande and asked him to change his mind.
Now he's hinted he looks set to stick with the Ivory Coast, whom he earned one Under 23s cap against Morocco a year ago.
In a social media post, he stated: "As a child who was passionate about football, my dream was to become a professional footballer and thus defend the colours of my country wherever I went and to play with the national team.
"Today I am truly grateful to Allah for having achieved part of this dream - that of becoming a professional footballer. There remains the other part, that of joining the national team and also of making my parents proud.
READ MORE: Rangers sponsors in classy touch for fan amid Dundee debacle
"Furthermore, I am also aware of the interest shown in me by my host country Ghana where I spent more than seven years of my life and my training as a footballer.
"However, a lot of things have been said, but I am in direct contact with the manager affected by my decision and he is the one who has the real information regarding my choice.
"I would like to thank my club Rangers for their support, my family and also all my fans during this period."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel