Pre-season and our league calendar

You are likely to wonder if we have a league calendar. We have one, except that, it isn’t as we want it. At best, our calendar is often a disorganized if not an ill-planned one. And it isn’t too difficult to explain why. Overtime, there has been talk about a synchronization of our calendar with that of Europe. I recall we tried it a few seasons back. It worked only to be disrupted later on and since then, we’ve either deliberately or through some innocent actions abandoned it.

There was unanimity about the benefits of the synchronization. How it was going to help us deal with transfers abroad because until the synchronization, our local players, those fortunate enough to land so-called lucrative contracts in Europe, always left at the time our domestic league was in session and this was the same time the European transfer window was opened.

Football is a global sport. As we frequently tinkered with our calendar, we were usually left behind – making it difficult, if not impossible for us to plan appropriately with the Europeans and even other African leagues, who moved flawlessly with the European calendar.

Given that, most football leagues across the globe starts and ends almost at the same period, we were and are still hurting ourselves with the synchronization failure. I can’t exactly remember when we attempted the synchronization but I know that, we were somewhat successful with it until we stumbled again.

We’ve since found it difficult to come back on track. As I write, most of the major European leagues are getting close to drawing the curtains on the first half of their 2015/16 season. We are yet to officially end the 2014/15 season. Inconsequence, if the 2014/15 season hasn’t been closed, how do you open the 2015/16 season?

What has stopped the Ghana Football Association (GFA) from officially closing the 2014/15 season isn’t too different from what caused last season’s delay. So there are cases; cases bordering on the promotion or otherwise of certain clubs. The GFA’s inability to amicably resolve these cases has stalled the start of the 2015/16 season.

Elsewhere, this doesn’t happen. Laws are applied strictly and whoever the long arm of the law catches isn’t spared. That isn’t always the case in our situation and that partly explains the avoidable delays which in the long term hamper the growth of the domestic league.

Pre-season

Most of our Premier League clubs, although they haven’t announced it, have started their pre-season work. They have started their preparation for the 2015/16 season without knowing exactly when the league competition starts. The question to ask then, is, how effective will their pre-season work be when in the first place, they are not sure of the league’s start date?

It’s good to note that, registration of players for the season commenced last Friday. The exercise will be on till January 20, 2016. That’s refreshing news for the simple reason that, administratively, the GFA, just like last season, aided the clubs to understand the new registration procedure. 

But aren’t the same GFA hampering the club’s pre-season programme with the delay in announcing the league’s start date? Pre-season, just like the registration of players must be within a certain time frame premised on the knowledge of when the league starts and ends.

Around the world, league calendars determine the amount of preparatory work teams do. Unfortunately, here, it seems there’s no such thing. It’s therefore no surprise that, our league isn’t growing as we want to see it even though virtually everyone in our domestic league’s decision-making body knows the right thing.

We don’t have a serious football calendar. We pay no real attention to timelines and what it adds to planning. It may be innocuous but starting and playing the league anytime has its associated problems. I hate to say this; I think the GFA of which the clubs are the major stakeholders is progressively failing in the efficient planning of the domestic league.

In this day and age, we shouldn’t be that poor in planning and its execution. It’s pathetic to observe that, we so much love European leagues but we aren’t learning anything from it.