Ghana will urge Canada to review their decision to deny Thomas Partey entry to the country ahead of their World Cup opener against Panama on Wednesday after the midfielder was refused the right to enter Canadian soil on Friday.
Partey, who remains at the team’s base camp in Boston, is set to stand trial for seven counts of rape and one count of sexual assault next June after being charged by London’s Metropolitan Police. On these grounds, Canada denied him entry to the territory ahead of Ghana’s tournament opener, but it’s a decision that the Ghanaian government are not planning to accept.
“If any Ghanaian is touched anywhere, we will not keep quiet over it,” Sports Minister Kofi Adams told local station Channel One TV on Friday. “Through the appropriate channels, we have communicated to the rightful authorities and are requesting for them to use all processes to review and give opportunity for a review of such a decision that we think frowns on international laws and conventions, which both Ghana and Canada are party to.
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“We think it’s appropriate to get the appropriate authorities to review this decision,” he added. “We’ve taken it to that level, and we hope and pray that they do what they must do.”
A media spokesperson for Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, speaking on behalf of the office’s minister Lena Diab, issued a statement to ESPN, explaining that the visa denial was justified because the country is consistent in “assessing [every person seeking to come to Canada] individually, based on facts available and the law that applies.”
It’s a decision which has been defended by FIFA, who have reaffirmed Canada’s right to determine who receives a visa and is admitted into their country.
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However, the Ghanaian government believe that Villarreal midfield Partey and his teammates went through the appropriate steps to apply for a visa, and that the Canadian authorities are setting an unacceptable precedent in denying the 33-year-old entry.
“Thomas was one of the players who was asked to go to the [London] embassy for his biometrics, and then yesterday morning we got the decision that he has been denied entry to Canada on very flimsy grounds,” Adams continued. “I say flimsy because the person has already been charged, he has not been found guilty.
“Even in the country where they claim he committed the act, for which reason he is in court, which he has denied, he is still living there, as a free citizen, walking about freely and doing anything every free citizen should do.
“He’s plying his trade, so one is therefore surprised that Canada — which is so far away — will now apply rules to the extent where somebody has merely been charged.”
In the United Kingdom, a crime is only accepted to be tried in court when the police and the Crown Prosecution Service have determined that the legal case for prosecution has been met.
“This is absolutely wrong,” Adams concluded, “I don’t understand why today Canada is interpreting their rules to suggest that a charge means guilty.”
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After Ghana’s opener against Panama, the team return to the United States for their second group game against England in Boston before concluding their Group L campaign against Croatia in Philadelphia on June 27.
Should they finish runners-up in the group, they would then have to return to Canada to face the second-placed team from Group K in Toronto on July 2.
