The heroic Ghanaian forward, Asamoah Gyan has formally declared his retirement from international soccer, following the declaration of the Ghana manager, Kwesi Appiah’s that the legendary striker is stripped of the national team captaincy.

The Ghanaian forward has spent the last two years at Turkish Super Lig club Kayserispor, netting nine times in 33 appearances, following his concluded spell at Chinese club Shanghai SIPG on a two-year contract.

Gyan is the Black Stars’ ever leading scorer with 51 goals after earning 106 caps for his country.

In his statement while retiring, he added his achievements in the team, his support, and thereby lamented on his move to hanging his boots not being splendid on the basis of captaincy.

The statement reads: “My mother once told me, “you cannot tout a decision you did not take as betrayal, because you have to expect it” I still do not understand that statement anyway.

“I cannot pretend to be happy. I would rather hurt myself emotionally and psychologically, over the years I served with an open heart and have given my all to the best of my ability in my quest to serving our great nation, Ghana.

“I have represented the proud colours of our country in 10 major tournaments from the Olympics, World Cups and in African Nations Cups with different coaches.

“In all, I would say the last years have been the proudest moments in my career as a captain under the managerial leadership of Coach Akwasi Appiah. I stood solidly behind my coach during the difficult times in Brazil and in some cases supported the endeavours of the team financially when the need arose to make sure his tenure and my captaincy would not suffer challenges and to ride with the assertion, A Ghanaian coach can do it.

“As an active footballer yet to retire, I have been in the team since 2003 and have played with some members of the technical team who were my seniors.

“Through such periods, there were no times substantive captains were part of a team in a tournament and had to surrender their captaincy to other players and served in different capacities.”

The 33-year-old revealed that after “consolation between him and his family” he decided to seize his moves in the national team and hang up his boots on international level, as Appiah names a captain for Ghana during AFCON that is not him.

Together with the Black Stars in AFCON’s Group F are Cameroon, Benin and Guinea-Bissau.