Kwesi Appiah was sacked (finally) by the Ghana Football Association yesterday, only a few months into his new two year deal, paving the way for the return of Milovan Rajevac as the new Black Stars coach.

Whilst most people, including myself, felt that the dismissal of Kwesi Appiah was long overdue, one cannot help but feel that there is something suspiciously off concerning the timing of the dismissal.

Kwesi Appiah signed a two year contract extension in July, in a deal expected to run through July 2016. If you believe the figures flying around, he pocketed a $100, 000 signing on fee, with a monthly salary of almost $40, 000.

Considering the huge sums in the contract, the two year duration, and the GFA having terminated it, you better believe there is going to be a huge severance package for Kwesi Appiah. Having agreed to pay him a certain amount over the next two years, and then having reneged on it, the severance must be a sizeable chunk of what he expected to make had all the terms of the contract been carried out.

The Chelsea fans amongst you should be very familiar with this, Roman Abramovich having carved out a niche as the king of paying out multimillion dollar severance packages.

With this expense, coupled with whatever millions Milo is now coming to make, one wonders what the motive could be for the GFA in retaining Appiah, only to sack him a few months later.

It’s not like the writing had not been on the wall for a while now. Everyone and their mother who saw what happened in Brazil could testify that Kwesi Appiah was a dead man walking. He lost control of his players, his tactics were horrible, his substitutions worse. He played his best playmaker as a defender, and benched two of his best players against the USA, waiting for his opponents to ‘get tired’.

So under this circumstances you cannot argue for logical reasons being behind his contract extension, because that just does not fly. If Kwesi Appiah was such a dead man walking and everyone knew, why then give him such a mega contract extension?

Perhaps there is some underhanded deal the rest of us do not know about. I mean handing someone a bumper pay rise and then reneging would be a great way to pay some extra money through legal means…isn’t it? If Kwesi Appiah knew he was a dead man walking, he could agree to the ‘arrangement’, and then settle his masters when the time came.

God knows Ghanaians were baffled when Kwesi Appiah was handed that extension. In his two years in charge, he only sparkled in qualifiers against vastly inferior opposition, and failed when the going gets tough. He failed miserably at CAN 2013, in what was Ghana’s worst performance at an African Cup since 2006, and then failed even worse in Brazil, Ghana’s worse performance at the World Cup, ever.

Under those circumstances, the GFA’s actions do not make sense. What has changed since he was handed that extension, absolutely nothing. He has four points from two games in these particular qualifiers, so it could not have been football reasons.

Unless that whole technical advisor fiasco was a long game to bring Rajevac back to Ghanaians in a way that we felt grateful, rather than resentful at the man who abandoned us four years ago. After all, Kwesi Appiah has stunk up the office so bad most Ghanaians would not have minded if David Moyes had gotten the job!

Every way you look at it, Appiah’s sacking at this particular moment does not make sense. The only explanation might be that there is more going on than meets the eye.