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| GFA Spokesman, Ibrahim Saani Daara |
It has in recent times become almost a ritual that, anytime Ghana, especially our
senior national team, the Black Stars participate in international tournaments,
certain developments which I call distractions, pop up. Eventually, instead of the
Ghana Football Association (GFA) focusing primarily on what sent the team to
the tournament, they rather engage the media; issuing press statements here and
there to deny one issue or the other.
Again,
in the end, the Black Stars don’t achieve their goal at the tourney. The GFA
and sections of the media rather succeed in diverting everybody’s attention from
the real issues. The team returns home with the promise of doing well at the
next competition only for the media and the GFA “actors” to repeat or in fact,
invent new forms of distractions at another tournament.
We have
had enough of the ‘distractions’. It is high time we behaved seriously as a
football country. We can’t continue to spend precious resources on football to the
detriment of other equally important things only to go to tournaments to play
with the intelligence of Ghanaians.
From
the African Cup of Nations (AFCON) in Gabon-Equatorial Guinea in 2012, AFCON
2013 in South Africa and the latest, Brazil 2014, the GFA and sections of the media
have had accusations and counter-accusations over the publication of stories
which undoubtedly put Ghana in bad light not alone in the eyes of Ghanaians but
also in the eyes of the whole world.
It may
be natural to have negative developments in the camp of a team during a
tournament. Yet it appears ours is becoming too much and unhealthy. It is high
time we became serious and found civilized ways of managing affairs relative to
bad developments in the Black Stars camp. It cannot be that journalists always
wake up to fabricate stories about the team at tournaments.
When
the Black Stars returned from AFCON 2012, there were damning reports of unbridled
gambling in the team’s camp by the players. Stories about superstition and many
other ridiculous tales were told by journalists who covered the team throughout
the tournament. Not surprisingly, the came out to deny every bit of the
information given by these journalists who were at the Gabon-Equatorial Guinea
competition.
At
AFCON 2013, the Ghana News Agency (GNA) ran a story that cited Ghana in a disparaging
bribery story. Again, the GFA denied that story. They even went ahead to blame
the GNA reporter at the tournament for putting out falsehood without initially
contacting her. At one of Ghana’s matches in South Africa, there was a public, vitriolic
exchange of abusive words between the FA spokesman and a GNA journalist, who, apparently,
was wrongly accused.
Ghanaians
up till now don’t know whether or not, what the GNA put out there was true. The GNA is not administered by angels so the tendency for
them to make mistakes exist but given the credibility of the GNA overtime, it
was hard for many people to accept the FA’s denial. How could the state-owned
news agency lie about the national team? That issue, just like the
Gabon-Equatorial Guinea one, died naturally after the GFA’s vehement denial.
Now
this week in Maceio, Brazil, where the Black Stars are based, Myjoyonline.com
reported of a "player revolt" in the team’s camp. The GFA was quick
to deny that story too in a press release. They added that: the “Joy FM reporter in Maceio, Tony Bebli vehemently denied ever
filing the report when he was confronted by Black Stars management and Asamoah
Gyan”.
Like it
happened in Gabon-Equatorial Guinea and in South Africa, the player “revolt
story” in Maceio will die naturally but questions will remain. One of the
questions will be whether it is simply journalists who have been fond of
publishing falsehood about the Black Stars at tournaments or it’s rather the
GFA which is always quick to sweep the truth under the carpet?
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