(PERISCOPE DEPTH, Monday, November 29th, 2024. PERISCOPE DEPTH is a column that appears is a column that appears in the Daily Searchlight every Monday)
Several years ago, a doctor at the 37 Military Hospital told me something interesting about various skin diseases, boils and carbuncles. According to him, many of such skin anomalies are not necessarily isolated to the obvious skin lesions that we observe, but are symptomatic of deeper diseases within the body.
Recently, a lady had suddenly lost the use of her eyes. We took her to visit various eye experts, who treated the eyes with various medications. They didn’t seem to work. Then I met a dietician at the Ridge Hospital and he asked about whether the lady had diabetes. We had not focused on that. We did the tests and found out she had diabetes. When the diabetes was treated, she began to have the use of her eyes back.
The lessons I learned from the above is that sometimes, obvious sickness may have underlying causes which, unless addressed, would lead to the obvious sicknesses not being addressed.
Before the last Black Stars game in the ongoing CAF championship, I had despaired. We had lost a game against a hitherto unknown football nation called Cape Verde, a humiliation of unknown proportions. Then, we went against Egypt. On that day, willy nilly, I decided to watch the game, knowing that I might climb into my bed in poor sorts. My fear was not unfounded. On two occasions, Ghana managed to climb into the lead, then predictably, managed to lose the lead on both occasions.
Then, we were paired against Mozambique, another nation of no significant provenance. That game, I made the definite decision to be kind to my blood pressure and listen to music on headphones instead of watching the game. I only decided to go back to watch, when I heard that Ghana had taken a two-goal lead. But I might as well not have watched. Ghana managed to concede the lead and drew another drawn game. We were out of the tournament with just two points out of a possible nine, one of the poorest performers, a great humiliation for a nation that has won this tournament on a previous four occasions.
Needless to state, I climbed into bed after the game against Mozambique with a heavy heart. And I am sure that I am not alone. Many Ghanaians must have felt the same.
A few days later, predictably, the Ghana Football Association (GFA) announced the decision to dismiss Chris Hughton, the Coach of the Black Stars. I was not surprised by the announcement. The GFA, it was clear to all Ghanaians, had messed up again, and to deflect attention from itself, was going to find a scape goat. Chris Hughton’s head was comfortably available, and was chopped off. But the problem is far and beyond the Black Stars coach of the day.
I am a firm believer in leaving things in the hands of experts. By extension, I believe in leaving football in the hands of football managers. The Ghana Football Association (GFA) is an association of football clubs headed by football managers. Obviously, these are people who know football, who should be able to put together a single team of the most superlative players in all those teams and clubs to represent the nation. Such a team should be the team to beat.
More than forty years ago, I attended a training session of Bofoako Tano at Sunyani, in the then Brong Ahafo region. In the course of the training, the coach interrupted the training to announce that one of his players had been selected to come to Accra to join the camp of the Black Stars. That player was Opoku Sampene. Now, I doubt that Bofoakwa Tano, or even worse, Opoku Sampene, had anybody in Accra lobbying that he be drafted to play in the Black Stars. And therein lies the problem.
The GFA, I understand, is made up of clubs, headed by lobbyists, who come to GFA meetings intent on pushing their club players into the national teams, so that these players can play on the international scene, attract scouts, and be sold of quickly. So that these lobbyists can make money. In sum, the game is to find slaves to sell as quickly as possible. The focus is not on the development of football in the clubs. And if it is not to develop the clubs, it certainly is not to develop the national teams. The people managing football have an objective, and that objective is not necessarily the national objective
It is one of the reasons why our Black Stars perform so ignoble.
Another reason why we have such a shallow team, is our collective disinvestment of football particularly, and sports generally.
Recently, I have been watching reruns of Brazilian Football, and I have come to the conclusion that Brazil has an extensive program that is almost certain to identify football talent at an early age. A study of all the quality international players that Brazil constantly produces, demonstrates that they were identified at an early age. Upon identification, they would be drafted into clubs, which would then make effort to horn their talents. We cannot say the same for Ghana, even though we have existing infrastructure in terms of schools (Ghana has a relatively high school enrollment rate) as well as football clubs. But the government is not very interested in sports development in schools, and the clubs are looking for quick money.
Another problem bedeviling the national teams, is the deep-rooted dishonesty plaguing the national psyche of Ghana.
For this example, I would go back to when Ghana won the FIFA Under-17 World Cup in 1991. At that time, I was working at a factory that manufactured cement blocks at Abeka Lapaz. One of the most famous players in that team, touted as being just seventeen years old, lived just down the street from where I worked. He was married, with three kids. But there he was, playing in the Under-17 National team.
We are a dishonest people. And until and unless we accept that and begin to make effort at changing, particularly in the area of sports, our national teams are unlikely to do well.
We have to have a program that correctly identifies the ages of players, because the mandarins in Ghana regularly under-declare the age of players in order to get them foreign contracts. The result is that many of such players, well into their thirties and sometimes forties, masquerading as men in their twenties, playing in the Black Stars. They would be extremely talented, but eventually, simple biology will catch up with them.
A forty year old can pretend to be twenty, for a time. But not for ninety minutes.
I believe that one day, we would win major trophies again, but unless we come back home and do the necessary self-introspection, these trophies would be further away, instead of being closer to home.
