Failure is an institution

The dust has yet to settle on the appointment and the dismissal of Coach Milovan Rajevac. The payout of $400,000 represents another colossal financial loss to the state and trust me no one will be held accountable for it! It is the tax payer’s money that politicians and football people flagrantly throw into the air every competition always returning to Ghana empty handed.

As individuals they never return empty handed. They always return with bags of goodies from their shopping escapades and exploits while supposedly on patriotic national duty! Our curious case in point is that this is not the first time and may probably not be the last!

The Minister for Youth & Sports Honorable Mustupha Yussif has now informed the House and Ghanaians that the sum of $2m was spent from the $10m the Government had put aside for the AFCON and the 2022 FIFA World Cup; should we be able to beat Nigeria to qualify.

However, we have yet to be informed about how much finance was raised actually raised from corporate Ghana. Government had indicated that they would require $25m for the Black Stars to participate in both competitions with the additional $15m coming from corporate Ghana. Now that we have crashed out of the AFCON wasting the sum of $2m it is not clear if we should assume that we will still need such a hefty amount if we qualify for the FIFA World Cup!

In debating our embarrassment in Parliament MP’s were furious and made that very clear deriding the GFA Management Team, the Technical Team and the players in no uncertain terms without being able to recognize that they were also a huge part of the reason why the Black Stars have failed to achieve anything in 40 years.

The Minister of Youth & Sports Honorable Mustupha Yussif was equally seriously exposed when he declared to the House that he had approved the training camp in Doha, Qatar on the basis that the Black Stars needed to acclimatize as the 2022 FIFA World Cup were to be held there later on this year.



Unfortunately, common sense is not common practice and the Honorable MP failed to take into account that the Ghana Black Stars had not yet qualified for that competition but were instead preparing for the 2021 AFCON to be held in Cameroon and there was no need to travel to acclimatize because the weather in Cameroon and Ghana are the same! The team could have camped in Tamale!

In this our excessively toxic football environment and fingers are pointing everywhere with rancorous commentary filling the airwaves in particular from the sports journalist and broadcasting fraternity. Its a sight for sore eyes as it publicly unfolds for Ghanaians and the rest of the world to see.

For the best part of two decades anyone who highlights and or raises any concerns has always been considered to be an anti GFA lobby “the haters!” There is also the pro GFA President and GFA Management lobby, they are the ones notably known to be “bellyticians” they promote the GFA and make claims of constant progress even when the GFA is grappling in the dark as it is doing right now. They complement the GFA President in particular on the designer suit he is wearing even when he stands naked before them!

As the clock continues to tick it only seems to indicate how much we are running out of time with the appointment of a Coach. The big question is should we appoint a “Stop Gap Coach” or a “Substantive” Coach? I will always contend that if a Football Association appoints a Senior National Team Coach for a period of 12 months then that is what I know to be a “Stop Gap” Coach, so having failed with the last appointment why don’t we appoint a “Substantive” Coach and in doing so changing our overall aims and objectives with this one single appointment?

You see another “Stop Gap” Coach will only concern himself with the next two matches which are two crucial 2022 FIFA World Cup fixtures that will determine if Ghana is represented at the World Cup. But a “Substantive” Coach would require a longer-term outlook and prospective of the job because the period of his employment would surpass a 12 month period. Any Coach would want to qualify his team to the World Cup but in terms of the time at hand to do the job its already been exhausted! Only good luck and a poor display on the day by a well drilled Nigerian team will ever see us through!

My opinion is that appointing a Coach with a minimum of a three-year contract is the best way forward in the long run. I mean if Ghana is not represented at the FIFA World Cup it will not be the end of the world. The Ghana Black Stars are clearly not ready for the big stage. They wanna bamba but they are not ready for the Big Boys with the “Gee” not even like Comoros and they will be facing much bigger boys there if they are fortunate enough to qualify so why not start the rebuilding process in earnest this time and relent short term gratifications that have failed us every single time.



The other issue is, which Coach in his right mind will take up the short-term appointment of a few months knowing that his dismissal is certain should Ghana not qualify for the FIFA World Cup? If it is a local Ghanaian Coach (that’s the only option so stop fooling yourselves) why can’t a local Ghanaian Coach be given the task over the long term and be competently supported by the GFA?

Will a local Coach be respected by the GFA never mind the players knowing that they are basically doing the local coach a favor in hard and desperate times? Something that they would certainly not have done under normal circumstances if they had more time and were working under a set of much more appealing and healthier circumstances?

Even the talk about combining the know-how of two locals illustrates the lack of confidence the GFA have in the locals, because if one bereft European can be seen as fit to handle the job why can’t the same be true of one local coach instead of two? I guess it’s a case of one European Coach in the hand being worth two local Coaches in the bush!!

Lest I forget I was disappointed to see Richard Kingson in a video that has made the rounds where he was categorical in stating that coaching the Ghana Black Stars was the equivalent of coaching a Division two or three side and nothing out of the ordinary.

This was so unfortunate a statement because Kingson was given the opportunity despite the fact that he does not have a Goalkeeping Coaches License. What an ingrate! Here in Ghana we think that a coach who has a CAF A Coaching License is fit enough to coach Goalkeepers. Well I am sorry to burst your bubble but that is not the case. Goalkeeping is a separate license on its own.



With the directive to reconstitute the GFA Management Committee just how is that going to actually work? The shifting of one incompetent management member to another position for another? Similar to what has been happening in successive Governments of the Republic of Ghana.

When one Minister becomes exposed he is sacked but swiftly shifted to another Ministry and that ensures the rot remains but instead of being cut out it is allowed to fester and grow in a different place no less. Is that what we are going to do now, yet again?

Member of Parliament for Okaikwei Central Constituency, Patrick Yaw Boamah wants player selection into the Black Stars to be investigated by football authorities. This is because of the injured players that enjoyed their holiday in Qatar and Cameroon as they could not even kick a ball due to the nature of their injuries. They trained on their own throughout!

The call is also being made because of a certain Phillemon Baffour who has received national call-ups at least 10 times so far and is yet to rise from the substitutes bench! Even when the position he plays which is right full back is vacant successive coaches have refused to use him! Baffour, was allowed to go take trials in Portugal instead of joining the camp and indeed only showed up in Cameroon some two days before the start of the AFCON and only after he signed a contract.

Well, we already know there is no selection criteria and MP’s have queried the basis for selection without one. Their conclusion on the matter was that the managers of the Ghana Black Stars were using the team to make money!

To be hones another enquiry wouldn’t solve the problem of the consistent failure of the Stars. It is quite clear to see that failure has become an institution. The Dzamefe Enquiry and its recommendations have not been taken seriously and or applied at all. After all we went through in the 2014 FIFA World Cup held in Brazil we have not learnt a single thing from it and we continue to replicate what we did the last time we failed always expecting a different result and that is just not going to happen.

This issue of the Captains Armband is one of the clearest illustration of successive GFA Management Committees not being able to manage. We have had nothing but issue after issue in relation to who the Captain of the team should be. The drama involving Abedi Pele & Tony Yeboah has been well documented, discussed and is a classic case in point that is referenced almost every year.

Somehow unwittingly Tony Baffoe got caught up in the mess during the 1992 AFCON in Senegal. Many up until now say he should never have been handed the Captaincy either and attributed that to his inability to convert a crucial penalty.

We have seen a similar show with John Mensah and Asamoah Gyan to the point where in order to pacify John Mensah he was eventually made the General Captain even though he could no longer play football! This also played out in the same way with Asamoah Gyan and Andre Ayew yielding the exact same results. I think Asamoah Gyan is still the General Team Captain. I have not heard anything to the contrary. But just look at that, they really have not much of an idea!

Individuals with the team have seen the team as their own from time to time holding the team for emotional ransom based on their voluntarily decision not to play for the Black Stars again before eventually rescinding that decision upon consultation and most times incessant pleading of all and sundry!

Who can forget the Captain armband bearing a picture of Asamoah Gyan during one of our continental fixtures as he celebrated the milestone of the match he was featuring in which was 100% wrong but the GFA Management were incapable of preventing this from happening and more recently the switch from one color arm band to the other when Andre Ayew saw red in the match against Comoros is a clear enough indication they are just unable to manage what goes on in the camp.

On top of it all some of these players seem to think they can dictate to the GFA about whether or not they will or won,t continue to play for the Black Stars even when it is clear they have passed their sell by date. All because the GFA does not have a tight enough grip on the situation.

I don’t know what it is all about but what I do know is that it is not necessarily about the individuals per say (even though that can’t be dismissed) but more to the point about the system.

By that I mean the institution and when it comes to the institution of the GFA its paralysis is borne out of the its dysfunctional ability to perform on any level for 40 years characterized by a myriad of dynamics that is really beyond their capacity and control which I term as the (IFS) institutionalized failure syndrome!

The only blip we can point to because that’s all it was is a blip was when Accra Hearts of Oak won the treble and were crowned Continental Masters for a year and that’s it!