While The Black Stars Struggle, Where are the Ayews?

We are not going to let this matter lie. We are not going to sit down and allow Kwesi Nyantakyi and Kwesi Appiah to use our beloved Black Stars to settle old scores. We demand an immediate public enquiry into the circumstances leading to the exclusion of the two brothers who are in top form and were both keen to play for their country. What a load of nonsense! We have had in our recent past, players refusing to play for their country. Is that not indiscipline? Yet on those occasions, we were happy to fly round the world to beg them to play as if the Black Stars would not exist without them. What right do they have to upset the majority of Ghanaians and the balance of our team by excluding two of our most enthusiastic and hardworking players on petty, rather ridiculous excuses. Dede has been playing for Ghana since he was seventeen. He has never refused a call-up. He was captain when our under twenty team won both the African Cup and the World Cup. He has never had a history of indiscipline. Through injury and ill-health, he has always plodded on for love of country. In the last AFCON, he played despite a dislocated shoulder. I watched and winced as his right shoulder was knocked back into place right before our very eyes in the middle of a game. One needed to amputate that boy’s legs to stop him playing for his country. How dare anybody break the boy’s heart with such impunity, just to settle personal scores? We need an immediate public enquiry, and while at it, we need to investigate the circumstances under which Prince Boateng withdrew his services for the nation. The true story about that has never been told either. If our dummy coach and the GFA that controls him feel threatened by top stars, then they are not fit to run Ghana football. Ghanaians have always loved their stars. From the days of Baba Yara, through Osei Kofi, to Robert Mensah, Adolph Armah, to the late Shamo Quaye and Joe Debrah, not to mention Abedi Pele, Ghanaians have always adored their stars and only a dumb coach and football authority would believe just getting rid of the top stars was the best way to build a team. How would our team look like if we had Dede Ayew and Jordan Ayew on either side of Kwadwo Asamoah, supporting Asamoah Gyan, with Prince Boateng and Agyemang Badu behind them? Any good coach would be able to make that combination work at national level. Instead, who do we have? An old and immobile Derrick Boateng, who has suddenly shot into prominence as “spokesman” for the Black Stars following the appointment of Kwesi Appiah. We have Danquah- Adomah, who is not only expected to replace Dede but has been gifted our famous number ten shirt, adorned by great men like, Abdul Razak, Emmanuel Quarshie, Abedi Pele and Stephen Appiah. We have Christian Atsu, who though talented, is currently only at the level Dede was in 2008. And then we go to play Kwadwo Asamoah in left full-back to make room for players like Boateng and Adomah in a Black Stars midfield! What is happening to the Black Stars? Who is running the Black Stars and what is their motivation? Has anybody heard Kwesi Appiah’s answers since the draw against Congo? Why did you play Kwadwo Asamoah in the left back position? Oh he is a utility player and he plays there for Juventus anyway. Well, I am sorry coach, he may be a utility player but that does not permit you to put him in goal. And sorry, at Juventus, he plays at wing back in a 3-5-2 formation, boasting one of the best midfields in the world. That is different from full-back in a midfield of Boateng, Adomah and Atsu. Coach, why did you bring in Afful to the left-back position in the latter parts of the game? It was because the midfielders were tired so Kwadwo Asamoah had to push up to help them. How ridiculous! So the reason was not to utilize Asamoah in more advanced positions to pose more threat to the Congolese in a game we badly needed to win. Whose job is it anyway to ensure that the players are in top physical condition? If you drop top active players and replace them with benchwarmers and second division players, then you deserve all you get. Midfielders were tired! Indeed! More was to follow. “We were robbed by the referee!” That is despite clearly observing Akaminko, a player he seemed to prefer for some strange reason rather than the battle-tested Vorsah, pull down an attacker who had left him for dead. And then “we lost as a result of tactical indiscipline” Whose job is it to instil tactical discipline? What did he do with his now famous six training sessions for which Dede was expelled from the squad for his inability to attend? So what was it? Were we robbed? Were we tired? Did we lack tactical discipline or was it all of the above? If these answers do not paint a picture of a hopelessly clueless coach, then I don’t know what else would. You must excuse me if my language seems a bit harsh. I am annoyed that Ghana soccer is being destroyed right before our very eyes through pettiness and ignorance, while a nation sits and watches helplessly, unable to do anything about it. Papa Appiah www.Ghanansemsem.blogspot.com

Ghana's Four AFCON Wins and Local Coaches-The Myth

Whenever the issue of the AFCON and whether we require foreign or local coaches comes up, we are all quick to point out, that Ghana has won four AFCONs, all with local coaches. But is it as simple as that? I am not going to pretend to have all the answers, but in the spirit of AFCON which we are all eagerly awaiting, I believe this is as good a time as any to discuss this issue. Indeed Ghana has won four AFCONS under local coaches, but who are these coaches? Three of the victories, two in the sixties and one in 1982 were all won by Mr C. K Gyamfi. This is a gentleman who played for Asante Kotoko, but at an early age, was ambitious enough in coaching to establish his own football club and become its player coach, managing to take them up to the first division as it then was.. He later played for Accra Hearts of Oak and then proceeded to Fortuna Dusseldorf to become the first African footballer in the German league. When he retired, he was sponsored by Ghana to obtain his coaching badges immediately and then came back home to coach the Black Stars. In terms of experience, training and outlook, Ck Gyamfi was no different from any other top European coach. He was at the cutting edge in terms of football knowledge and team building. His coaching manuals became coaching “bibles” all over Africa and indeed, when the German Rudi Gutendorf took over the Black Stars in nineteen eighty six, he expressed surprise that he was needed in Ghana at all when CK Gyamfi was around. After all that he achieved in Ghana, and despite being internationally recognised and respected, CK Gyamfi was left to wander off to try to make a living in places like Somalia and Kenya while our national team struggled, but that is another matter. The fourth AFCON was won in Accra by Mr Osam Duodu in 1978 in the late stages of the Kutu Acheampong era. It is interesting to know, that the Ghana team, all local players at the time, had been camped in one of Brazil’s famous football academies, under the supervision of a Brazilian football professor (yes, they do have football professors in Brazil) for close to two months in preparation for the tournament. We had never prepared for a football tournament that well before in our history and have not since. Interestingly, the same Osam Duodu was in charge when we were kicked out in the first round of the next tournament in Nigeria. The point I am making, is that it is only sheer coincidence that we happen to have won four AFCONS with local coaches and not because our local coaches have some special skill suited for the AFCON. The Ghana team that won the AFCON in 1982 had just two foreign-based players – George Alhassan who played for FC 105 in Gabon and Emmanuel Quarshie who played for Zamalek in Egypt. Cameroun also had two Frence-based players. It was in the next competition in La Cote d’Ivoire in 1984 that the influx of foreign-based professionals started with Cameroon winning the competition with 5 Europe-based professionals and a foreign coach. The rest, as they say, is history. Ghana’s relationship with foreign coaches started from independence, but we must not lose sight of the numerous administrative hiccups, sheer organisational incompetence and the corruption that has often frustrated many a foreign coach. It is interesting to observe, however, that Hassan Shehata, the only other African coach to have equalled CK Gyamfi’s record, has, like CK Gyamfi, always relied on locally-based professional footballs. In fact, Egypt does not suffer the kind of mass exodus of players prevalent in West Africa. In the 2010 AFCON, only three of the Egyptian players were foreign-based while Ghana had a mainly foreign-based team. Why are Egypt’s best footballers not keen to go abroad? It is because they just don’t have to. Their local league has developed to a point where the players are comfortable and well-paid in Egypt and training facilities are better than any Ghana can dream of. That brings us to the question – does it matter what colour of skin a coach has on our bench? And the answer to that is, that it does not matter one jot. Even England, the home of football, has had to resort to foreign coaches at some points in their recent history. The idea that we can somehow turn our search for national coaches into exercises in jingoism and xenophobia baffles me. We need the best-qualified individual for the post and at the moment, with the quality of our football league, the training facilities we have and the one-week training courses we organise for coaches to earn a coaching certificate, unfortunately, the average local coach in Ghana is way behind his foreign counterpart, if the latter has been coaching in the European top division. I am not proud to say that, but it is the reality. It is not as simple as just picking the next available black man, making a lot of noise and hoping for the best. It is about track record, proven competence and achievement at the highest level of coaching. What we need to do is to deal with the problem from the basics. Mr Kuffuor did well, building the Tamale and Sekondi Sports Stadia. Every region in Ghana has to have a top class stadium, complete with modern training facilities. We need to seek the funding and invest in our local leagues to whip up interest so we can increase remuneration of our players. We need to have a West African College of Coaching with strict entrance criteria and world class teaching and examinations, to train our coaches for the future. England have tried to solve their own problem by building the 100 million pound St George’s Park complex at Burton which is not only a coach- development centre but also a training home for all their national teams. The centre has ultra- modern facilities for coaching, Sports Science, Sports Medicine, Sports Psychology etc. It was built in response to the realisation that England was falling way behind other European countries in terms of coaching capability and technical ability. So it is not easy! We may not have 100 million pounds, but we sure can start from somewhere. Papa Appiah www.ghanansemsem.blogspot.com

Kwabena Agyapong! How the Mighty are Falling!

Kwabena Agyapong amazes me. This is a guy who used to be a hero of mine. To be fair, this was at a time when I was much younger and more foolish than I am now and anyone who correctly strung a few English words together was a hero of mine. I particularly remember watching the 1990 World Cup on television when Kwabena Agyapong, alongside the likes of Foe Amoaning and Carl Tuffuor charmed the nation not only with their wide knowledge of world football, but also with their eloquence and demeanour. Unfortunately, the charming young man who then was has grown into what appears to be, an angry old man in a complete reversal of the usual course of the rhythm of life. Watching him on Newsfile a few times recently, he talked and looked very much like a guy who had seen better days and as if life had given him a raw deal. But this is a “multi-talented” civil engineer who started off as a sports presenter, dabbled in football management amidst allegations of financial impropriety, ended up as presidential spokesman and then as presidential candidate of the NPP. To see him viciously attacking the personalities of his political opponents was sad indeed. In one such exchange with the young NDC “parrot” Felix Kwakye-Ofosu, he conceded, that the NDC communicators had a deliberate ploy to attempt to make their opponents angry on air, and then, with his face contorted in sheer fury, belched “But I am not angry!!” I bowed my head in shame. The guy had lost it right before our very eyes. How the mighty are falling. Speaking English well can only take one so far. While we all admire Mr Agyapong’s eloquence, when he starts to attempt to ridicule others and question, for instance, why anybody would elect Mr Hassan Ayariga, “ a man who cannot get his grammar right” as their presidential candidate, the alarm bells start ringing for some of us. Sorry Sir, you seem to be getting carried away. What has speaking English got to do with anything? I would not vote for Hassan Ayariga, but not for a reason as so hopelessly ridiculous as his grammar, but because he failed to address any of the pertinent issues to my satisfaction. Until such time as we eradicate that entire mentality that equates an ability to rattle another man’s language with competence, we stand the danger of being ruled by well-spoken fools. The issue of Nana Addo’s rather unexpected departure from Oxford University came up in one of the debates, and Mr Agyapong sought to lambast Mr Tsatsu Tsikata for daring to say elsewhere, that he had heard rumours of Nana’s departure from Oxford when he entered the university but was not sure what the actual reason was. Again, Mr Agyapong, lips trembling, went to town, expressing gross disappointment in Mr Tsatsu Tsikata; a guy who used to come to their house, a guy who was the beneficiary of Mr Agyapong’s father’s legal cases when the latter had been called to the Supreme Court and so on. Has this guy completely lost his marbles? What has all that got to do with anything? I felt embarrassed for him and for the NPP. If such was the mentality of the people the party put forward as communicators, then it was no wonder the party could not connect with the ordinary floating voter in Ghana. Kwabena Agyapong was amongst the NPP top hierarchy that fought tooth and nail to have their own polling agents in every polling station and at every point, all the way to the Electoral Commission’s strong room. They may deny that now for political expediency, but the purpose of that was to take the onus of responsibility for the accuracy of the results at the grassroots from the Electoral Commission into the parties’ own hands. The argument was that if the results were signed off by all the party agents, then the results would have been certified as fair. That is why Kwabena Agyapong’s analogy, that if you have a security man at home and your goods were stolen, you would still complain to the police, sounded quite embarrassingly childish to me. Of course you would tell the police but what you would not do, is to blame the police. And when Mr Agyapong relates Nana Addo’s illustrious past and personal sacrifices in the battle against dictatorship and the establishment of a free and democratic country, few would argue with that. We need to give the guy some credit. After all, he was involved in Radio Eye when it was ever so dangerous to do so in those days, and has been a presidential aspirant for years. How then do we reconcile these lofty democratic credentials with all-die-be-die? Again, while Nana’s legal credentials are not in doubt, it is baffling why such a legal luminary would file a case in the Supreme Court and then hold a press conference to try the case in the court of public opinion and to whip up sentiments. I have known cases thrown out of court for just these same reasons. There are too many contradictions to contend with. At one time Mr Akuffo-Addo was going to accept results as declared by the Electoral Commission, now he is only going to accept a Supreme Court verdict. But is he? Who knows? And by the way, Mr Agyapong, it does not matter which country a man comes from, how old he is, what qualifications he has, what sacrifices he has made in the past, how many lawyers he has taught, if he then goes on to promote a policy of all-die-be-die and fails to publicly condemn genocidal sentiments expressed by a close political ally, we are perfectly entitled to disrespect him. For at the end of the day, some of us care more for the lives of our grandmothers in the village than for some buffoons of politicians. Electoral processes are dynamic. Even America, with their long tradition of voting, had to contend with unacceptably long queues and people being disenfranchised in their recent elections. Obama had to promise to get those problems “fixed” in his victory speech. So we owe it a duty to our democracy, not only to audit performance after each single election to ensure that we identify mistakes, but also, to effect changes aimed at making our system stronger. And thank you very much; we are well capable of doing that as a nation, without NPPs reckless declaration of results, demonstrations, useless press conferences and stabbing of innocent Ghanaians. We have come a long way as a nation in our electoral processes. We started by changing over to transparent boxes. That was not enough. We introduced picture ID cards. That was not enough to prevent multiple voting. We asked for foreign independent observers. Five different groups of observers are no longer enough. We asked for party polling agents every step of the way. That is no longer enough. The Electoral Commission should be responsible for how these agents perform, according to Mr Agyapong and the NPP. We asked for results to be faxed. That is no longer enough. The faxed documents, apparently, are being intercepted and altered to favour one candidate. We requested biometric verification. That has now become the problem rather than the solution. Now, to top it all, Mr Agyapong is asking for the Electoral Commission as currently constituted to be disbanded and one set up that has representatives of each political party. You have spoken like a true prodigy Mr Agyapong, but would that be enough should the NPP lose an election? Your guess is as good as mine. Papa Appiah Ghanansemsem.blogspot.com

War in Ghana? Let Wisdom Reign

The tide is turning. The inferno is ablaze. The writing is on the wall for all who have eyes, to see. We are drowning in an abyss of political immaturity. And in the midst of all that, politicians who once posed as beacons of democratic change and human rights in Africa are either silent or are coming up with the most abject and disgraceful defence of the indefensible. The stakes are rather high. Both major political parties have had a taste of what it means to be in power in Ghana – untold opulence at the expense of our people. Oil has been discovered. Opportunities for self-enrichment abound. So people have lost all sense of proportionality and balance, and wisdom has been thrown to the dogs. Have our moral standards deteriorated to such an extent that the law of the jungle now reigns in Ghana? Where being rich and owning a radio station arrogates to one the power to “declare war in Ghana”? Our country has come a long way. Cherish the peace we enjoy, for people have had to shed their blood for it. In July 2005, a group of Moslem men packed with explosives boarded trains in the UK and detonated their bombs, killing 51 innocent passengers. No individual dared go on radio to declare war on Moslems. Why would a few misguided incidents of violence during a democratic process, so infuriate one to the extent of declaring war? There is a difference. The latter involves issues of power and wealth. Have we not learnt from incidents of history? Does the genocide in Rwanda seem so far off? Did it not start with incendiary, tribalistic utterances on radio and where did it lead to? We should not take our peace for granted for it is not too long ago that the Oguaa Akoto were thrashing the thousands of Ashanti warriors. It is in the DNA. So where are our leaders when we need them? Where is our president? Where was he when his men were fomenting trouble? Our president does not have to wear a police uniform to exert authority. A president should exude authority so we obey them merely out of respect. Not everybody has the qualities of a president, and if Atta Mills cannot do the job, then he should quit. Not a single member of the NPP has condemned the utterances, and the party has not dissociated itself from the comments. But the most disgraceful of all was the comment by Kuffuor regarding using a sledge hammer to kill a fly. The least said about that the better. Kuffuor has obviously not visited Ghanaweb. In the end, we are all one people, one nation and with one destiny. We rise together and fall together. So let freedom reign, for our very existence depends on it. Let peace reign, for we have come too far to turn around. Let free speech reign, but with a sense of responsibility of the borders of acceptability, but above all, fellow Ghanaians, let wisdom reign! Papa Appiah Lexeve1@yahoo.co.uk www.ghanansemsem.blogspot.com