June 18

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06
BY NANA BRAM OKAI II
IT SEEMS members of the erstwhile
Ghana Football Association
(GFA) are deaf and dumb;
they see nothing and they hear
nothing; they only listen to their
egos. But our elders say that if a
child fails to listen to advice he gets his
fingers burnt in the fire and this is exactly
what has happened to them.
I wrote somewhere in November,
2015, in this same column, titled,
‘Ghana Premier League in Limbo,’ advising
them to be wary of the dangers
ahead and do the right things. Football
in Ghana at all levels had taken a nosedive
and I was warning them to change
for the better. None of them, particularly,
the former President took any
heed but proceeded as before. I bring
you excerpts of what I wrote then in
2015:-
First excerpts
“What we see rather happening at
the moment is people paying cash to
see live matches involving teams in Europe
playing their respective leagues at
the expense of Ghana soccer. And
football lovers in Ghana are happy to
do that unashamedly; they do that with
glee.
“And interestingly, even children
know the names and faces of most of
the players plying their trade in the
English Premier League; the Italian
Serie A; the Spanish La Liga; the Portuguese
Primira Liga; the German
Boundesliga; the French Ligue 1; etc,
etc but they cannot mention a single
Ghanaian local star worthy of note. It’s
gone that bad, you know.”
Kotoko and Hearts
“Kotoko, which used to be a force
to reckon with both in Ghana and in
Africa, is a pale shadow of itself and
could not even stand the wrath of
Kpando Heart of Lions recently. This
was not the case hitherto. Also, Accra
Hearts of Oak, which under the late
Coach Attuquayfio went into Africa
and made conquests, can no longer
smash Tunisia’s Esperance on their
way and suffered a 5-1 defeat recently
on home-and-away basis.
“It’s not surprising therefore that
our stadiums are always empty when
our local teams are playing. Very few
Ghanaians watch local matches these
days. The observation has been that
fans go to stadiums to watch their darling
players play and so they will not
go if they have no darling players to go
and watch, hence the empty seats at
the stadiums. What has happened to
our local league?
State of affairs
“Somebody or some group of people
must be responsible for this lackadaisical
state of affairs in Ghana
football. And if you ask me, I will put
the blame firmly on the doorsteps of
the GFA under the current leadership.
It wasn’t like this in the past.
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“The GFA is responsible for organizing
football at all levels in this
country, from the Colts level all the
way up to the Black Stars. They don’t
have to be physically present in all
cases but they have to put structures in
place so that things work out well.
“This is not the case, however.
The GFA is only interested in the senior
team, the Black Stars and funds accruing
therefrom and so very little
attention is paid to the junior teams,
particularly, the Colts who are supposed
to be the future stars. It’s for
this reason that for many Ghanaians
football means the Black Stars and the
Black Stars mean Ghana football. Too
bad!”
Headway
“But someone tells me that if we
are to make any headway in football
development and progression in this
country, we have to catch them young
at 13 or 14 and groom them to fill the
senior teams. This way, there will be
continuity and we are very likely to see
a huge change in the way football is organized
and played in this country.
“Frankly, I have not been personally
happy about the way GFA organizes
the game of football in this
country and I mince no words in saying
it. Everybody knows that no GFA
President has been in office longer
than the current President.”
Rot persists
Nothing significant happened after
I had written this article and the rot
kept on persisting. I made up my mind
not to write on football and football
administrators again but I couldn’t
hold back. You can’t sit aloof when
something nasty is taking place in your
neighbourhood. So, I wrote again
somewhere in June, 2017, in this column
titled, ‘GFA now wants to hire
paid officials to do the job,’ and I bring
you excerpts of that write-up as well:-
Albatross
“Frankly speaking, the GFA, under
its current dispensation, is a huge albatross
on the neck of most Ghanaians
and the earlier they leave the scene the
better it will be for themselves and
Ghana soccer as a whole.
“Interest in Ghanaian football has
so gone down the drain that most
Ghanaians cannot mention the names
of the players of Accra Hearts of
Oak; nor of Kotoko; nor of Ashgold
and several other teams that recently
came onto the scene.
“Instead, mention Chelsea and a
six year old Ghanaian boy can tell you
the names of all the players and even
the wives of those of them who are
married. They can do the same for
Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal,
Bayern Munich, Real Madrid,
Barcelona and all the European teams
in the various leagues.
Vote with feet
“Why is this so? The answer is obvious.
Ghanaians have voted with their
feet when it comes to football in this
country. At least, that is the position
now; it may change in the near future
HERITAGE MONDAY, JUNE 18, 2018
I wrote three times about goings-on
in the GFA but to no avail
but for now this is what we have on
our hands.
“Ghanaians no longer go to our
national football stadia to watch our
local players in action but elect to go
to pay to watch European teams playing
and place a bet too on them. What
can be more appetizing than this to
them?
“And this is because our league is
not well planned and implemented.
Unlike other leagues which go the full
haul till end of May or thereabouts,
our league doesn’t start and end according
to the scheduled programme.
“Our league suffers from intermittent
suspensions, intermittent truncations,
unnecessary litigations and what
have you. So, before the league comes
to an end real interest in the Ghanaian
game has died off.”
League
“The 2016/2017 league in Ghana
came to a close in October 2017 when
others had completed theirs long before
in May and have started the
2017/2018 league in earnest. But, in
our case, the 2017/2018 league will
start in January 2018. Obviously, we
are sleeping on the job. And you don’t
want anybody to say something about
this? How?
“You can’t execute football administration
this way and expect good results.
Yet, there are examples
throughout the world to follow. Why
•Kwesi Nyantakyi
are we not following the good things
in the world concerning football?
Experts
“By agreeing to employ experts to
run Ghana football, the GFA is tacitly
admitting that it has come to the end
of the road and they need help from
those who can run the show better. I
have my doubts however, about this
proposition.”
To tell you the truth I’m not surprised
about what was captured by
Anas on the tape screened recently. It
shows you scenes of men and women
who have come to the end of the road
in their job and are therefore desirous
of hanging on through any means, fair
or foul. They should have gone long
“By agreeing to employ experts to run
Ghana football, the GFA is tacitly admitting
that it has come to the end of the road and
they need help from those who can run the
show better. I have my doubts however,
about this proposition.”
ago but for inordinate personal ambition.
But don’t go yet, I have excerpts
from my third article written around
June 6, 2016 titled, ‘Football League in
Disarray’ for you and here we go:-
“Once again, the news coming
from football circles is not so pleasant.
The premier league in Ghana has been
slapped with injunction, thereby putting
the start of the 2017/2018 league
in complete disarray.”
Leagues
“To start with, one wonders why a
league, like all other leagues elsewhere
in the world, that should have started
around September, 2017 and end in
the middle of June, 2018, should be so
ill-planned that it was scheduled to
start in January, 2018. At what point in
time then would this league end for the
2018/2019 programme to commence?
Your guess is as good as mine. There is
complete mess as far as football administration
in Ghana is concerned.
“We were all expecting the league
to start in January, 2018; at least that
was what they told us and we took it
coolly, in good faith. Come January,
2018 and we heard nothing from the
corridors of football administrators of
Ghana. Then came the bombshell on
February, 05, 2018 and it was that an
injunction had been slapped on the
GPL by an aggrieved party for which
reason the league can’t start for now.
Blimey!”
Fans and analysts
“Frankly speaking, to several football
fans and scores of football analysts
in Ghana, this is no news at all.
Several people have given up on
Ghana football so much so that, news
of this nature is no news to them at
all. They are not surprised.
“And it’s because the administrators
of football in this country have
run out of ideas and are not up to
scratch any longer; yet they won’t leave
the scene.”
President
“The current President has been in
office for years but within this period,
colts football has witnessed a deep
nose-dive and nobody will dispute this.
Women’s soccer is half-heartedly supported
as their coaches sometimes go
without their salaries for months. The
Black Stars too, the darling team of the
current leadership of GFA has also
not won any cup within this period although
they have come close on several
occasions. What does this tell us?”
Change
“This tells us that there must be
change in the leadership of the GFA
so others can also try their skills on the
job since wisdom doesn’t reside in the
heads of only one person or one
group of people. Maybe if we have a
change, the new chaps will succeed
where others have not succeeded or
even they may be lucky to win a cup
where others have not been so lucky to
win a trophy. There certainly must be a
change at the GFA set-up.”
Current leadership
“You may recall that the current
leadership of the GFA first came into
office in 2005, a year before the World
Cup in Germany and they were to
hold office for four years. In 2009, instead
of holding an election to renew
their mandate or to be kicked out,
something dramatic happened and
they stayed on and on.”
I did what I should do as a patriotic
citizen of this country and they wouldn’t
listen. So, I shed no tears for any of
them caught in the web.