My little worry with the Elite Cup

GFA Communications Director, Ibrahim Sannie Daara.

When the Elite Cup was introduced, I commended the Ghana Football Association (GFA) not merely for the introduction but for the objective with which the competition was added to the FA’s calendar. It was to keep clubs active, they said; as a result of the long delay to the start of the Premier League following the legal battle between King Faisal and the FA.

The Elite Cup was important. Even though not many matches were played especially by the Premier League clubs before the King Faisal-GFA legal tussle that stalled the commencement of the league ended. Lower division clubs started playing the preliminary round matches until the number of participating clubs were whittled down to 16 a couple of weeks back.

Two division one clubs eventually reached the group stage. Sixteen (16) teams were recently grouped into four with each group having four clubs. The clubs are to play on home and away basis with the point-system being the same as that of the Premier League.

A cursory look at the groupings reveal that, the geographical location of the clubs were very much considered otherwise no type of random selection or balloting could place for example, three Brong Ahafo Regional clubs and in fact, All Stars into one group. These clubs are all in the northern zone of the country.

I am not faulting whatever wisdom that went into the grouping of the clubs. I am rather applauding it, since the geographical zone will help reduce travel cost. If the sole reason for introducing the Elite Cup was to keep the clubs more active than they have been over seasons, I think the GFA and its Elite Cup committee is having the purpose being served.

If it was to simply keep the clubs busy because the Premier League wasn’t in session, that objective has been defeated or in fact, it has to be revised. The Premier League has been in session since January. We have completed the first round – patiently awaiting the start of the second round. These are very little thoughts I have on the Elite Cup but my major worry with the competition so far has got to do with the general outlook if not its image.

Has it been branded well? It is true that, the FA has financial constraints but I’m of the view that, not everything is done with big money. Certain things take little money, deep thinking, commitment, dedication and smartness to execute. That is what the FA hasn’t done when it comes to properly branding or publicizing the Elite Cup. Despite the FA’s financial difficulties, it’s hard to understand why for example, they don’t have a competition logo for the Elite Cup.

How much does the designing of a competition logo cost, which the GFA can’t afford? If Kotoko Express as a club newspaper committed to the development of domestic football decides to publicize the Elite Cup, what image or logo will it use as a print media house?

Will Kotoko Express have to design its own logo using Kotoko players? What if Hearts News – the official mouthpiece of Accra Hearts of Oak also decides to have a design which predictably will be different from that of Kotoko Express? There will be an identity crisis if not confusion.

It is not for nothing that, for CAF or FIFA competitions, logos are designed for media or promotional use. I’m aware that, the FA has been chasing sponsorship for the Elite Cup. Perhaps when they secure one, there will be a graphical image or a logo for the Elite Cup.

Should we wait till then? The FA already has a logo. It has its corporate colours. It should be easy for them to design a logo for the Elite Cup using its corporate colours. That could help publicity and branding of the competition especially by print media houses.

This issue of Elite Cup competition logo might be negligible but it’s extremely vital for me as a print media person seeking to publicize the competition either in my newspaper, website or social media. I urge the FA and the Elite Cup committee to reflect on this very simple issue. If domestic football will develop, it requires little efforts by us all but the FA must lead the path.

Why Nyantakyi can't boycott Hearts matches

GFA President, Kwesi Nyantakyi.

It’s a painful conclusion I’ve come to. I think at times, the Ghana Football Association (GFA) open itself up for too much bashing. The other time, it was a remark reportedly made by the GFA President, Kwesi Nyantakyi that sparked public criticism of the FA. Nyantakyi was quoted as saying that, he wouldn’t watch matches of Accra Hearts of Oak again, after some rogues parading in ‘rainbow colours’ attempted to physically attack the decent, respected man.

It was most unfortunate that, this came just about a week to the 14th anniversary of the May 9th stadium disaster which killed 127 fans. That, people could still think of violence at the very stadium which witnessed that catastrophic football tragedy in our history, tells me that, many are yet to learn anything worthy from the horrifying incident of 2001.

I sympathize with the GFA President for any trauma he might have suffered as a result of his near-assault. I however can’t agree with him. I think his decision to boycott Hearts of Oak matches isn’t right. If anybody would say such a thing, it shouldn’t be the FA President.

I accept that, the GFA President is human and as a rational human being, he would avoid anything that has the tendency to harm him or senselessly end his handsome, young life.

But the crux of my disagreement with him is this: if GFA President wouldn’t want to visit a match venue because of acts of violence or hooliganism, who should go to that venue?

Let me make myself clearer. I’m not saying, the GFA President has to ignore the risk of being attacked by some scoundrels and visit any match centre where there’s a threat to his life. I’m only saying that, as the figurehead; as the number one person entrusted with the management our football; as the ‘father of Ghana football’, President Nyantakyi didn’t have to say that.

All things considered, his comments were in my opinion, a bad advertisement for the league.

It appeared as a discouragement to any individual wishing to watch Hearts matches. As I said earlier, if the GFA President isn’t interested in watching Hearts matches apparently because of the violent behaviour of some of their fans, who would he encourage to watch Hearts matches?

I’m not preaching hypocrisy but at best, the GFA President could have kept that unpopular decision to himself rather than making it public to expose himself and the FA to the avoidable criticism. The behaviour by those Hearts supporters must be condemned in no uncertain terms.

The attempt by some Hearts supporters to rationalize their primitive attitude and the radio interview by one of their leaders that, it was rather the Premier League Board Chairman they were looking for goes to show how misguided some supporters’ leaders are and can be.

Hooliganism is real in our football. We can’t deny that. There have been many incidents of violence at league centres, perpetrated by supporters of practically every football club here. Sadly, we don’t seem to have dealt with violence in our game as decisively as we should. There may be laws that see to the punishment of clubs for violence at their matches but I say those laws don’t really bite.

What is more, it is not enough to continue punishing clubs for crowd violence while the very people who carry out the irrational acts of violence eternally walk free. It may well be world-wide football practice to have clubs punished, when their supporters misbehave but that practice does exist with the actual perpetrators of stadium violence also being punished.

Where possible, those perpetrators are arrested, prosecuted and jailed if found guilty.

In some cases, they are even banned for life or barred making stadium appearances.

It’s understandable that, we don’t live in the kind of system that can accurately identify and track hooligans, arrest and punish them. But with police presence at the stadium, it shouldn’t be difficult arresting and prosecuting people who take the law into their hands.

If it’s about repealing our football laws that don’t seem to bite well, we must chart that path to fight the canker head-on. I share Mr. Nyantakyi’s pain but Mr. President, please rescind your decision for it doesn’t serve the GFA’s interest of promoting the local Premier League.

Difficult first round: my highs and lows

Kotoko spanked Heart of Lions 4-0 on match day 15.

This is in Kotoko’s perspective. Perhaps in subsequent articles, I will look at the entire competition. Today, I just want to take readers through what my highs and lows were concerning Kotoko in the first round of the league. To say that, Kotoko struggled in the competition would be stating the obvious and I like stating the obvious.

I’ve picked five highs and five lows which respectively brightened and discoloured Kotoko’s outlook in the first round of the 2014/15 First Capital Plus Premier League. One of the first highs was the registration of players for the competition. I haven’t picked that necessarily because I was one of the main architects of Kotoko’s player registration exercise for the season.

 

I have chosen it largely because of the success of the entire exercise which management steered to perfection, providing the necessary documentation on each of the 29 players. If something had gone wrong, it would’ve made news but because everything went right, there was nothing worth talking about. Most of the time, we journalists want negative rather than positive news not just because it sells but also because that’s what the public is interested in. 

 

It was imperative that, management worked hard to keep the lenses of the media and the general public from any negative development regarding the registration. So after that, the competition got underway following a long delay and Kotoko scored its first low. Against very strong hopes that they would break the jinx that had prevented them from winning at Dormaa Ahenkro against Aduana Stars, Kotoko lost 1-0 which was quite a bad start.

As defending champions, Kotoko’s plight wasn’t helped either when Hasaacas held them to a draw 2-2 in Kumasi. That draw – the first of four home drawn games in the 15 matches Kotoko played was another low. But when many had predicted that, Kotoko, then under the tutelage of Coach Mas-ud Didi Dramani, would struggle to beat B. A. United at home, the Porcupines posted a confident 2-0 win at the Sunyani Coronation Park. I covered that game. It was a quite exciting encounter.

Returning to Kumasi to face arch rivals Hearts, many knew anything could happen in Kotoko- Hearts matches but no genuine Kotoko fan dreamt of defeat for the fabulous lads. In the end, it was a sad story. Kotoko lost 0-1 to Hearts to mark another low moment. Down but not really battered, Kotoko trekked to Obuasi for a regional derby against the high performing Ashantigold.

The writing was clearly on the wall. With Ashantigold right on top of the league, playing superbly too, it was going to take far more than the ordinary performance then Coach Mas-ud Didi Dramani and his team had been displaying to win at Obuasi. Despite taking an early lead, Kotoko succumbed to Ashantigold’s massive pressure and lost 2-1. That was also another low.

Coach Didi had to leave. In fact, he was asked to proceed on leave by the Board, ending his nearly three-season reign. Didi won two league titles plus the FA Cup yet after seven games in the 2014/15 season, the defending champion languished in the bottom ranks of the league. Didi and Kotoko’s poor run needed to be halted. Enter Coach David Duncan who replaced Didi.

The twists and turns that preceded Duncan’s final arrival was a high. His presence injected a sense of freshness or newness into the entire Kotoko system. Coach Didi’s exit certainly marked a low point. Coach Duncan led Kotoko to beat Bechem United 3-1 in his first league game.

He and the team received rave reviews. A very disappointing 0-0 draw at home to Great Olympics coupled with an earlier 2-1 loss also at home to Algeria’s Eulma in the CAF Champions League, wiped the rising good feeling around Coach Duncan and the team.

Something needed to be done to restore the good feeling and hope. The team staggered.  Even the impressive wins in the FA and Elite Cup matches did very little to raise the excitement. But when they thumped Heart of Lions 4-0 in Kumasi, the fans literally stretched their necks across the fence to see which players caged the Lions.

That win ensured that, Kotoko ended the first round on a high note. Many expect that, in the second round, there will be more exciting moments for Kotoko. I also expect that. I believe the team’s performance will greatly improve.