This "eminent football administrators retreat" is irrelevant!

Youth and Sports Minister, Mahama Ayariga.

Since June 12, the attention of the world has been fixed on the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil. For those of us in Ghana; our interest was mainly in the Black Stars who embarrassed the nation in the South American country. Indiscipline reigned in the Black Stars camp as there was brouhaha over appearance fee, culminating in the sacking,

no – the reassigning of former Youth and Sports Minister, Elvis Afriyie Ankrah along with his deputy, Joseph Yamin.

The Ghana Football Association (GFA) held a press conference on the Black Stars’ shame in Brazil but not everything was satisfactorily explained as the media disagreed with the FA, lambasting them for their mishandling of issues in the team’s camp with many calling for the dissolution of the Black Stars management committee. I supported and still support that call.

New Youth and Sports Minister, Mahama Ayariga announced the setting up of a three-man committee to ascertain what went wrong in Brazil while giving appropriate recommendations to forestall a recurrence of that national disgrace. The committee is yet to start work. Interestingly, as the football fraternity went to sleep on Thursday, July 10, 2014, a circular emerged talking about: “The Group of Eminent Football Administrators’ Retreat to Review the State of the Game of Football in Ghana and Advice (sic) on a National Strategy”.

This has set tongues wagging in the media to the extent that, a critical scrutiny of the press release on the event even revealed that, the name of the hotel where the programme will held today was wrong. Let’s forgive whoever wrote the press release for that error but that, in insincerity, confirms the hastiness and by extension, irrelevance of this impulsive event.

That, the 60 people who have been invited to the retreat are not “eminent football administrators” isn’t an issue I would like to interrogate but quick view on that list is that, we don’t need all of them to brainstorm on the state of Ghana football offer advice. Again, I won’t question the intentions of the retreat organisers but they have clearly got it wrong.

Assuming that, the state of Ghana football is bad, I think, a retreat of this nature won’t change anything. The GFA have been legitimately vested with the powers to manage Ghana football. The retreat organisers should know this and stop wasting everybody’s time. What they have to do is to liaise with the FA to learn of the true state of affairs; encourage and support them.

The path taken by the retreat organisers even mocks the Youth and Sports Ministry. It exposes their ignorance but are the people at the Ministry novices? I should have been optimistic about this event because pessimism saps my energy to reason constructively but very typical of some of our leaders, they have given me reasons to pessimistic. That is sad. Why is it that, we keep wasting time and money on unhelpful things?

Our football is not all about the Black Stars and their continuous failure in international competitions. It is about the structures at the FA, it is about infrastructure, it is about organisation, it is about money, it is about the personnel and their knowledge and the level of professionalism they exhibit. That is what the retreat organisers must know.

Juvenile football is coma. It exist only on the FA’s mind and it is only mentioned in the FA’s long, winding speeches given at Congresses. Women’s football is struggling to find feet. There is hardly any attraction or interest in the Women’s league. Our domestic men’s league competitions aren’t well organised despite the GFA/PLB’s efforts to make it better.

Clubs are badly managed. They lack professionalism. Clubs don’t have money to recruit, keep and pay their players well. They play on bad pitches. They have poor or inadequate facilities to ensure growth or development. They are unable to compete well with their peers on the continent and beyond. That is the small picture I can paint of the state of Ghana football.

Retreat organisers, give us a break! Waste not our time and scarce resources on the so-called eminent football administrators’ retreat. We don’t need this retreat. Mr. Minister, please liaise with the GFA to learn of the true state of Ghana football. After that, let’s know what plans you have to help the FA change anything bad you find.