By Ken Bediako.
I have always been entertaining those nagging fears that, from the look of things, Ghana doesn’t seem to be actually ready for professional football. I don’t intend to show any disrespect for our football administration but you dont need any white cane to see that pro football in Ghana is just in the name. In short there is nothing professional about our so called professional football.
Since 1994 when the then Sports Minister Enoch Teye Mensah, by the stroke of a pen introduced pro football in Ghana our so-called home based professional footballers especially, have been struggling for identity in a so-called professional league comprising supposed professional clubs.
Being the main actors in the professional football business, the players are so lowly paid that a number of well-meaning lovers of the game have proposed some decent salaries for them. Some of the suggestions even go to the extent of asking government to augment salaries of the players.
The rather low income of our local professional footballers has been a topical issue for decades. This really baffles me. It should be no business of the football public to determine numerations for professional footballers.
Professional football is such a unique industry that there is nothing like a salary scale for example, a good left winger with three years experience, or a goalkeeper, central defender or a midfielder for that matter.
Even though football is a team work comprising eleven players, each player is paid according to contracted personal terms with club management.
It’s like the Biblical definition of the human body which comprises several parts but act as a unit. The eye cannot say its unconcerned when something affects the hand so will the ear also be concerned when anything bad hurts the nose.
This is how a football team operates. Each is the other’s keeper playing specific roles with different emoluments. There is perfect harmony with each player negotiating his terms. The goalkeeper is not paid more because he keeps the goal and the striker will not be necessarily paid more because he fetches the goals that admittedly is the lifeblood of the game.
My point is if we want to be true professionals the clubs must operate as such. Transparency is a must. The right structures must be put in place.
Clubs must operate on real business lines. Accounts must be properly kept so potential sponsors would be encouraged to be carried along.
We need not invent the wheels. Good professional football administration abounds worldwide that can be easily followed. You need heavy investment to yield results. Ask Man City and Chelsea about their transformation from an ordinary side two decades ago to the current dizzy heights, completely dwarfing the legendary Busby Babes at Old Trafford. We have to drink deep and establish credible structures to make clubs attract the many potential investors nationwide. Otherwise we should return to the old amateur system where footballers were employed in varied state owned and private companies and financial institutions and given flexible working hours to enable them train after work.
The players those days received monthly salaries from their employers and took only winning bonuses and training allowances from the clubs.
This was what the generations of C.K. Gyamfi, Aggrey Fynn, Addo Odametey, Osei Kofi. Awuley Quaye, John Eshun, Kwasi Owusu, Emmanuel Quarshie and Co went through. As amateurs they enjoyed patronage from philanthropists like B K Edusei, S K Mainoo, H P. Nyemitei, Roger Ocansey, A.A Ampofo, W.K Kpikpitse, E A. Nartey, Naja David, Mourkazel, Holdbrook -Smith, Ampofo Manu, Charles Gyimah, Blay Miezah, Kenpong and many others who spent valuable time and money to motivate footballers to keep afloat.
That time is long gone and the nation should embrace professional football with all seriousness and sincerity to be abreast with the times.
It may not be too much to ask Kumasi Asante Kotoko and Accra Hearts of Oak the two best supported clubs in the country, to set the pace.
When Ashanti gold were aiming to be true professionals, they consulted with the legendary Bobby Charlton of Manchester United fame. He was in the country to give them ideas. No wonder the miners became the first Ghana pro league champions in 1994 and two more in succession-a brilliant hat-trick that lends credit to the sagacity of Sir Sam Jonah then AGC chief executive.
It’s unfortunate the momentum could not be sustained perhaps due to administrative changes in the mining industry. And to add confusion to disbelief Ashgold stand the risk of losing premiership status following allegations of playing fixed matches.
Seriously, I think the nation is toying with professional football in the country. It is becoming fanciful for individuals to form a football club in Ghana. You have to try all means to gain promotion into the premiership and if you are lucky to get at least one player to be sold abroad for dollars, you can forget about the rest. This is not a good practice and I am suggesting to the FA, and by extension the Ministry in charge of sports, to give proper guidelines that will give hope to the large breed of young men eager to make football a career.
As things stand now, admission into the Black Stars group is the major avenue that would give a home-based player the hope to make a living from playing football.
And the cascading effect is that unnecessary pressure is put on the national team handlers to select players deliberately promoted by both social media and highly partisan lobbyists.in the sports media. This is not a healthy situation.
And this brings into focus last Sunday’s Afcon prelims match between the Black Stars and Madagascar which ended in a surprise 1-1 affair. I say surprise because I guess most Ghanaians, including yours truly, expected the emerging Black Stars, on current form, to win comfortably.
The Stars had three days earlier sparkled during a second half outburst to whip Madagascar 3-0 in a similar Afcon show in Cape Coast. and we all were expecting an encore.
The snag is Coach Otto Addo made seven changes in his squad against Madagascar presumably with a long view of the impending World Cup in November. His gamble to give as many players as possible the big match temperament before the World Cup, did not appear to have worked to perfection.
As expected, the usual vociferous armchair critics have taken him on for that gamble. Some of them are citing the famous but highly debateable cliché of “not changing a winning side”, to back their argument.
From experience, I will always give the benefit of the doubt to the team handlers who are intimately with the squad in camp. I am sure if the team had won handsomely, the same critics would have praised the coach for giving chance to the youngsters and not relying on the “same old big names”.
Meanwhile, a section of the media is lambasting the coach for leaving behind their favourite home-based heroes like Barnier of Accra Hearts and Augustine Okrah of Bechem United.
I believe the handlers of the Black Stars appreciate the delicate nature of their assignment and would not take any hasty decisions to spoil the broth. I will back them to the hilt not to play to the gallery. They should stick to their game plan. After all the end justifies the means. They should give us the good results. That’s all.
Qatar and Dakar here we come.
Cheers everybody and keep loving sports.
