Ghana Footballer Ayi Nii Aryee Forced to Live in Airport for Months
By: Bob | December 8th, 2006
The Global Game has a remarkable post about a football player from Ghana who has been forced to live in an airport in the Philippines for six weeks because of visa issues. Ayi Nii Aryee is an 18-year-old who left Ghana to try his fortune with the Sporting Afrique Football Club in Singapore. As is all too often the case, once he arrived at his new club in a foreign country the conditions of his contract were changed and he left for the Philippines where his cousins lived. With his visa canceled and his passport confiscated, Ayree has no way of leaving Clark airport, a former US airbase, 43 miles north of Manila.
The obvious comparisons are being made to the Tom Hanks movie The Terminal that came out a few years back, but unlike the movie Aryee probably isn’t hooking up with a stewardess on the sly or hanging out with a dog named Hooch or talking to a friendly volleyball while dressed as a female named Buffy.
I’ve spent a night or two in my life sleeping in airports and it has always been about as pleasant as a root canal. It is hard to imagine that a story that has received a modicum of media coverage wouldn’t have led to someone helping Ayree out by now. If you happen to be in the Philippines, please help the dude out. At least give him a quarter so that he can watch one of those chair tvs for 3 minutes. Or buy him a souvenir t-shirt. The guy is still wearing his jersey for heaven’s sake.
Category: Africa
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Comments
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this has made me sad. i live in the philippines, and this is the first time i’ve read of the story! my friend says a local TV channel has done a story on him, though.
i want to get him more publicity, so i’m spreading the word. i hope FIFA acts on aryee’s e-mail soon.
Posted from
Philippines
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Thanks for the link. Aryee has been stranded at the former Clark air base for some five months now.
Posted from
United States
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