Black Stars Assistant Coach John Paintsil has filed a suit at an Accra High Court against some sports journalists and media houses for making defamatory statements against him.
The former defender is demanding a total of GH¢80 million from these journalists and media institutions.
According to a writ sighted by Onua Sports, the former West Ham United player is demanding, among others, an unqualified apology from the defendants and a public retraction of the defamatory comments he complained of on the same medium of publication.
The firms cited in the suit are Multimedia Group Limited, Omni Media Limited, and Angel Broadcasting Limited.
The journalists are Patrick Osei Agyeman, popularly known as Countryman Songo, Saddick Adams, popularly known as Sports Obama, Christopher Nimley and Veronica Commey.
John Paintsil is demanding GH¢20 million each from the media firms on which the said defamatory comments were made and GH¢5 million each from the journalists.
He also wants a perpetual injunction placed on the defendants, restraining them, their officers, directors, servants or agents, “from further publishing or broadcasting or causing to be published or broadcast the above-stated statements or any other words similarly defamatory to the plaintiff”.
The statements were said to have been made after the appointment of John Paintsil as Otto Addo’s 2nd Assistant Coach.
The journalists were also convenors of the recently-staged Save Ghana Football demonstration, a move Paintsil spoke against on UTV prior to his appointment.