{"id":1043006,"date":"2022-04-02T20:10:53","date_gmt":"2022-04-02T20:10:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/04\/02\/williams-sparks-nationality-switch-after-black-stars-world-cup-draw\/"},"modified":"2022-04-02T20:10:53","modified_gmt":"2022-04-02T20:10:53","slug":"williams-sparks-nationality-switch-after-black-stars-world-cup-draw","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/04\/02\/williams-sparks-nationality-switch-after-black-stars-world-cup-draw\/","title":{"rendered":"Williams sparks nationality switch after Black Stars World Cup draw"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<div class=\"td-post-featured-image\">\n<figure><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"696\" height=\"421\" class=\"entry-thumb\" src=\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/EQfRzRhXkAEbETC-696x421.jpg\"   alt=\"Inaki Williams\" title=\"Inaki Williams\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Inaki Williams<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p>Spanish born of Ghanaian descent, Inaki Williams, has sparked up talks after liking a tweet showing Ghana\u2019s group opponents at the FIFA World Cup in Qatar.<\/p>\n<p>The Athletico Bilbao player has been a long term target for the Ghana Football Association but all attempts made have proven futile.<\/p>\n<p>The 27-year-old, who was born to Ghanaian parents, has in the past played down suggestions he could feature for the Black Stars.<\/p>\n<p>However, moments after Ghana was drawn against Portugal, Uruguay and South Korea at the 2022 FIFA World Cup draw in Qatar, Williams liked a tweet from the official Twitter handle of the Black Stars, relaying the information about Ghana\u2019s group opponents.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.modernghana.com\/thumb\/XGltYWdlc1xjb250ZW50XDQxMjAyMjEwMjQzMS1rNWZyaTd0MmgwLTBlNmZlMWM2LTRjYzAtNGY1OS1hM2FmLWQ1M2M0ZWQwZTUwYi03MzF4MTAyNC5qcGVnfDY3MHw0LzIvMjAyMg==\" alt=\"\"\/><\/figure>\n<p>His last appearance for Spain came in a friendly game against Bosnia and Herzegovina back in 2016, which makes him eligible to play for the Black Stars at the 2022 World Cup.<\/p>\n<p>Williams in an interview last year cast doubts on switching nationalities for Ghana saying, \u201cMy parents are from Accra and I really enjoy going. But I wasn\u2019t born or raised there, my culture is here, and there are players for whom it would mean more.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t think it would be right to take the place of someone who really deserves to go and who feels Ghana 100%.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, Joy Sports\u2019 Muftawu Nabila Abdulai has revealed that the Ghana Football Association has held talks with the father of the striker over a possible nationality switch ahead of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\"\/>\n<p>Ghana will open their 2022 World Cup campaign in Group H against Portugal on November 24 before the second group game against South Korea on November 28 before the final group game against Uruguay on December 2.<\/p>\n<p>The Black Stars qualified for the Mundial after they edged West African rivals Nigeria in a nail-biting World Cup play-off staged over two legs.<\/p>\n<p>            <!--  [embed]https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=videoseries[\/embed]<!--\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>--><\/p>\n<div class=\"youtube-embed\" data-video_id=\"Ri9KBk56sww\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Cocoa Farmers Speak of Challenges in their Work \u2013 Adom TV News (31-3-22)\" width=\"696\" height=\"392\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Ri9KBk56sww?feature=oembed&#038;enablejsapi=1\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Inaki Williams Spanish born of Ghanaian descent, Inaki Williams, has sparked up talks after liking a tweet showing Ghana\u2019s group opponents at the FIFA World Cup in Qatar. The Athletico Bilbao player has been a long term target for the Ghana Football Association but all attempts made have proven futile. The 27-year-old, who was born [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1043007,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[94,262,1812,3049,2785,95,1441,4305,784],"class_list":["post-1043006","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-black","tag-cup","tag-draw","tag-nationality","tag-sparks","tag-stars","tag-switch","tag-williams","tag-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1043006","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1043006"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1043006\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1043006"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1043006"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1043006"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}