Real Salt Lake confirm talks with Jerry Akaminko for deal, hails Ghanaian as 'cerebral center-back'

Published on: 17 February 2016
Real Salt Lake confirm talks with Jerry Akaminko for deal, hails Ghanaian as 'cerebral center-back'
Jerry Akaminko

American top-flight side Real Salt Lake have confirmed that they are in talks with Jerry Akaminko after offering the Ghana defender a deal, hailing the powerful player as 'cerebral center-back'.

Ghana's leading football news website, Ghanasoccernet.com exclusively revealed in Tuesday that the centre-back has been offered a deal after impressing during a one week trial.

The deal will be finalised if the Ghana defender passes a medical with the Major League Soccer (MLS) in the coming hours.

Akaminko played in two friendlies matches before he was offered the deal through his British-Ghanaian agent Ibrahim Sana who travelled with him the USA for the trial and talks.

Real Salt Lake general manager Craig Waibel hailed Akaminko for the performances during his trial and he is confident a deal will be signed soon.

“That is a positive for my intentions with the player but the deal is not done. It is definitely still not done,” Waibel told the Tribune.

"But we are in conversation with him and as of this moment he is trialist but the club is still pursuing him. “Jerry is cerebral center back who also possesses impressive speed. We’re very fortunate to have brought Jerry in.

"We’re quite pleased because, again this is high quality player with options that came into our environment and realized this(trial) is something he wanted to be part of,” he added.

The deal was brokered by UK-based super agent Ibrahim Sana who has helped several top Ghanaian players like Daniel Opare to seal moves to the German Bundesliga side Augsburg.

Akaminko cancelled his contract with Turkish side Eskisehirspor last month over unpaid wages despite having two years left on his deal which was supposed to end in June 2018.

He will fight his case before FIFA as reports that he left the Turkish side over fitness concerns have turned out not to be true.

The Ghana defender has fully recovered from the injury he suffered just hours before Ghana named it final World Cup squad for the 2014 World Cup.

The centre-back has regained his form since suffering the knee injury last May in a Ghana pre-2014 FIFA World Cup friendly against the Netherlands.

Akaminko sat out the entire 2014/2015 season without kicking a ball as he went through rehabilitation.

Since recovering from the injury he has regained his top form which looks to have led his decision to leave Eskisehirspor after he played many matches for them but was left unpaid.

Akaminko started his Turkey in adventure in the 2008-2009 season with Orduspor before switching to Manisaspor from where he was signed by Eskisehirspor in the summer of 2012 for 1 million 350 thousand Euros.

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