Former Ghana captain Asamoah Gyan has revealed that he sold maize with his father at the Kaneshie market after school.

The former Sunderland striker says that he is not from a rich home and neither were his parents poor as his mother was a headmistress while his father was a businessman who sold maize.

According to Gyan, there were not poor as he attended one of the finest basic schools in Accra Seven Great Princes Academy with Shatta Wale.

He says that he will not sing from the usual celebrity hymn sheet where they tell stories of misery, poverty, and overcoming them all to rise to the top.

“I was with Charles Mensah [Shatta Wale] at Seven Great and they opened a new one, the one at Dansoman, so that was where Shatta went. The rich people went there,” Gyan told Berla Mundi on the Day Show.

“Nah, my parents did well to cater for my education, we were not that rich. I won’t be a hypocrite to motivate people that we were poor and they try to motivate people.”

“When you talk about poor people, they are those in the village who don’t have but my parents were able to cater for me. My mother was a headmistress and my father was a businessman, he sold maize at the Kaneshie market."

He further stated: “From school, I used to go sit down at the Kaneshie market and sell. Sometimes when I’m around that place driving when I get down people will think Asamoah Gyan came from the sky but they didn’t know I was there selling maize.

“I didn’t sell the maize but my dad goes to Nkoranza and they bring them in a sack to sell to the Kenkey sellers. Sometimes we don’t use the Kaneshie footbridge, we jump the fence to pick a car to Mallam but people don’t believe it.”

Asamoah Gyan played for Udinese, Sunderland, Rennes, Al Ain, Kayserispor, Shanghai SIPG, Legon Cities, and several other clubs.

He is Ghana's all-time top scorer and has 51 goals in 109 appearances for Ghana.