Yaya - An African Perspective

By Emmanuel Baah-Aboagye

News of Yaya Toure wanting to leave Manchester City for the perceived lack of attention from the club’s owners on his 31st birthday, which fell on 13th May,2014, irks and irritates me a great deal.

Dimitri Seluk, who has been the player’s agent since his playing days at Belgian side Beveren in 2001, claims that Suleyman Kerimov, owner of relegated Russian side Anzhi, in April 2011, presented a Bugatti Veyron worth €1.8m to then captain Roberto Carlos on his 38th birthday and therefore Yaya by his lofty standards, needed just a handshake from the club’s president as an indication of attention, recognition, appreciation and respect does not only smacks off greed but spins one’s thinking.

Yes! Yaya Toure has done extremely well since joining the English champions from Barcelona in 2010 in a deal worth £24m. I doubted whether Yaya could adjust to the pacy nature of the English game but
he has proved me entirely wrong.

But is Yaya Toure justified in wanting out because of a handshake? I beg to disagree. Yaya Toure owes Manchester City tonnes of appreciation because for me, the club has contributed to making him a better player even than when he played for Barcelona. For the records, the club has made Yaya Toure its highest paid earner with £220,000-a-week.

Again, prior to his move to Manchester City, Yaya Toure had played a total of 285 matches for 5 different clubs in Europe (Beveren, Metalurh Donetsk, Olympiacos, Monaco and Barcelona, scoring 22 times.

At Barcelona alone, he played a total of 117 games and scored just 6 goals before joining Manchester City. Since joining Manchester City, Yaya Toure has scored a total of 51 goals in 184 appearances and that alone should inform the player that Manchester City has contributed immensely to his brand.

Again, prior to his move to Manchester City, Yaya had scored a total of 5 international goals for Cote d’Ivoire as against 11 scored since his move to the English Premier League.

Yaya Toure has seen his image soar so high winning Africa’s football flagship award in three successive times (2011, 2012 & 2013). Manchester City tweeted a happy birthday to Toure on the club’s official Twitter page and sent him a customised cake with the club’s crest on it. I have also watched a footage of his colleagues singing a happy birthday song for him on board a plane to Abu Dhabi. On account of all these, their complaints can only be described as frivolous, out of substance, mischievious and empty.

Yaya Toure is as perplexed as his agent with these lines: "Don’t take words that do not come from my mouth seriously".

“Everything Dimitri said is true. He speaks for me. I will explain after the World Cup".

The above lines are nothing but a cacophony of confused messages. It is simply a ploy to get his pocket stuffed!

Yaya Toure should be man enough!!


http://www.ghanasoccernet.com/feature-ivorian-star-yaya-toure-man-enough/