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How Ghana football let itself down
Pulse Sports' Kwaku Anno-Kumi highlights factors that has led to Ghana's failure to qualify for the CHAN tournament in 2018.
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The team failed to qualify for the 2016 edition and now finds itself out of the 2018 edition this time round. Ghana was ousted by neighbors Cote D’Ivoire and Burkina Faso.
The repetition should tell us that the failure of the team to qualify is indeed a process, not an event.
We look at few indicators that have shown that Ghana has stagnated in football development and this could be the new norm.
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Failure to plan
It has been 35 years since any team with the tag Ghana Black Stars won anything of note. I encourage anyone reading this took a critical observation of how football tournaments are won. There a few things that will be easy to note. There seem to be categories of teams which win such tournaments. The first category has teams with the tournament just falling into their laps. A case in point is that of the Cameroonian side who won the African Cup of Nations in 2017.
This was a team which had its notable players out of the side but got to Gabon and surprised everyone. The second category has teams who feed on the energy of the home fans to perform brilliantly and emerge Champions, for example, Tunisia in 2004.
The other group who happen to acquire an elite group of players which keep working till they get lucky. The example is Cote d’Ivoire in 2015 who had a set of players who rose to prominence in the year 2006 and finally after 6 editions of coming up short, they finally prevailed in 2015.
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The last group has the teams who really have an efficient plan and the case in point are the Egyptians who are the most successful African side with a record 7 titles. Ghana has arguably found itself in the first category in 1982 as Ghanaian government at the time were skeptical on Ghana’s participation but Ghana emerged champions.
The 2nd category was tried in 2008 as Ghana hoped to use the energy of hosting the tournament but that proved futile. The 3rd category is what Ghana found itself in from 2006 to 2010 where the core of the team which has Sulley Muntari, Micheal Essien, Stephen Appiah and Laryea Kingston was a midfield most African nations could only envy. That also has not worked and now we need to plan.
Technical Direction
James Kwesi Appiah and Maxwell Konadu were appointed after Avram Grant who lost the plot as he went about things without getting the full support of the Ghanaian public.
Kwesi Appiah came in to do the opposite as he rallied support from people in Ghana since the message was that one of our own had returned. The truth is the message was to buy time and give some breathing space but when the results turn bad Appiah will go under immense scrutiny.
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Konadu, on the other hand, has been with the team since Kwesi Appiah was appointed in 2012. He has failed to qualify Ghana on two occasions and there is a lot of talk as to Ghanaian coaches upgrading themselves technically. The state, as a matter of fact, had scholarships for coaches when Ghana Black Stars was found as that program produced Christian Brandt, James Adjaye, and the illustrious Charles Kumi Gyamfi.
Indeed, looking at the current situation it might be hard to sponsor individual coaches to study abroad. But there is no plan being it short term or long term to get a well-established institution to train coaches in Ghana. This is clearly one element of football planning that has been ignored.
Player quality and exodus
The argument of player exodus and quality divides opinions. There has been the school of thought that feel the players who could change the outcome of Burkina Faso game in Kumasi were of the shows the land. The other school of thought also felt there are still quality players scattered across the local scene but Maxwell Konadu and James Kwesi Appiah failed to make to call the best of talent. I think both points are valid because team cohesion and telepathy is important. The team had Majeed Ashimeru and Razak Abalora who were very integral as the team prepared for these qualifiers.
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The time came and these players including a few others were off to seek greener pastures elsewhere. Notwithstanding there were a few players like Justice Blay, Jacob Lawerh, Joseph Painstil and a few others who failed to make it to the Black Stars B team. It might be inconclusive as to whether these players would have helped us qualify but there is a holistic problem in structure.
As a matter of fact, it can be baffling how a player good for the Black Stars A cannot start in the Black Stars B. That for one leaves much to be desired.
The players themselves are not being remunerated well enough and on time and that has seen a number of players go outside Ghana. Ghana football administrators have failed to upgrade their various club outfits. Egypt for a long time had strong and fortified clubs which conquered Africa until the unfortunate political turmoil which befell the state from 2011-2014. It was then Egypt looked to the European Market and started getting their players to Europe. The Egyptians also took it up a notch as Egyptian Businessman Maged Samy now owns a Belgian side Lierse S.K and this has served as an outlet to abundantly get players from Egypt into Europe. It was no fluke when the Egyptians finally returned to the African Cup of Nations in 2017 they were runners up.
Football administration has let itself down in this country from clubs in division three, two one and Premier League to the various national teams. Everybody who has come close to football administration should bow their head in shame. If we structured football to attain national development, Burkina will not have the effrontery and skill set to beat Ghana at home. For the Burkinabe coach to say Ghana were tactically inferior.
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