Stephen Appiah has said he is hopeful that he will finally sign for a new club this summer, after several near misses earlier this year. �When you don�t have a job, you have to look for one. Right now, I am looking for one," said Appiah. �But now, there are a couple of teams and I would see what happens,� he added. In January, a proposed move to AC Milan collapsed.
The player also claimed on Ghana national television that a conflicting medical report blocked his chance to team up with Russian club Rubin Kazan. The midfielder disclosed that Rubin Kazan asked him to do a test in Munich but the outcome revealed a 40% loss of muscle. �Of course, I had played [for Ghana] against Egypt, so I could have lost some muscle. But further test in Italy wasn�t more than 10%. So that was shocking. I was asking myself, what was happening?.�
Soon after that move collapsed, Appiah returned to train with Brescia and was called up by AC Milan�s managing director, Adriano Galliani. But a transfer to Milan was called off because he does not carry an Italian passport and could not even be registered by Milan as an EU player. Italian teams are limited in the amount of players they can sign from outside the European Union. �When [Genaro] Gattuso got injured, Galliani called me and asked where I was and I said I was in Brescia. So, someone was sent over to check up on me. Training was good and everything was fine.
�I went Milano and sat down with them but the problem is I still don�t have an Italian passport, so I can go to AC Milan. In January, I was supposed to sign a contract with them but it didn�t happen because of my passport problem and that deal fell through,� Appiah said on national network, GTV. Appiah said he also hopes to resolve a compensation claim awarded against him by world football governing body FIFA to pave the way for his return to club football.
The midfielder would need to pay former club Fenerbahce $2.3 million in damages on the orders of the sports' governing body for walking out on a contract with them. Having managed to overcome a difficult two years, first getting sidelined for a year through injury, before struggling to find a club, Appiah says he is confident of playing club football this season with his status ratified by FIFA.
�Some people think it is my name that has been affecting my chances of getting a team, it�s not the name but it was the FIFA case. Some of the teams are scared. They didn�t know how much they were going to pay. They don�t how much FIFA says I should compensate Fenerbahce. So they were a little bit scared. �They didn�t know that I am the one who has to pay. But now that they know that I am the one who has to pay Fenerbahce $2.3 million, I think things would be much easier now.�
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