Please don’t call me a spoilt child. I was so used to writing on the string of brilliant successes of Ghana sports in the early 60s when I joined the inky fraternity so much so that depressing and negative reporting of sporting failures and the attendant excuses have been alien to my genes for a long time. For the two decades plus as an active sports journalist junketing across Africa, Europe and the Americas on assignment, it was predominantly stories of success upon success. Indeed, I luckily ended the junketing on s good note with the Black Stars 1982 Afcon triumph in Libya. I don’t envy the current generation of Ghanaian sports journalists at all. The catalogue of poor performances and rather care free style of sports administration these days are quite baffling. There is so much to be done that there seems to be the need to start all over from scratch.
When I joined the sports desk of the Daily Graphic in September 1961, the sports media was still recounting the first Ghanaian medallist high jump bronze won by Bob Kotei in the 1958 Commonwealth Games in Cardiff, Wales and also celebrating the historic Olympic boxing silver medal won by Ike Quartey Snr at the 1960 Rome Olympics.
Then in 1962 Ghana were really triumphant in the Perth Commonwealth Games in Australia earning the unofficial tag of the strongest amateur boxing nation in the Commonwealth. Ghana had a record six boxers in the finals and eventually won two gold and four silver.
Lightweight Eddie Blay and Lightwelterweight Ike Quartey Snr won gold The silver medallists were flyweight Cassis Aryee, Bantamweight Sammy Abbey, middleweight Thomas Arimi and light-heavyweight Jojo Myles.
It was in Perth that long jumper Mike Ahey did Ghana proud by setting a Games record and won gold.
The following year the Black Stars hosted and won Afcon 1963 for the first time beating Sudan 3-0 in the final. In 1964 Professional boxing had a big boost when Ghana staged the World featherweight title fight between local idol Floyd Klutei Robertson and Cuban born Sugar Ramos of the USA. It was a rather controversial loss to Robertson and many boxing pundits said the crafty Ghanaian pugilist was clearly robbed. In 1965, the Black Stars successfully defended the Afcon Cup in Tunisia beating the hosts in the final after extra time.
Ghana sports was really on the ascendancy as shown in the 1966 Commonwealth Games in Kingston, Jamaica.
The boxing squad was fantastic. Seven out of the nine boxers won medals-three gold, two silver and two bronze.
All these sporting achievements had the imprint of hard working Sports Director Ohene Djan who had been given absolute power and resources by Osagyefo President Kwame Nkrumah to make Ghana the showpiece of sports in Africa, especially football. He really worked hard to justify the confidence reposed in him.
Ohene Djan’s absence was felt following his dismissal from office after the coup that toppled the Nkrumah administration on Feb 24 1966.
The new administrators in the Busia era struggled to find their feet and it was when the Kutu Acheampong regime decided to give sports a special place of honour that things began to improve again.
An enthusiastic physical educationist Lt Col Simpe Asante was appointed special assistant to the head of state who was in charge of sports. With immense authority, he controlled Ghana sports from his 11Th floor office at the State House. His tenure is a whole chapter to be told in Ghana sports history. Suffice to say, he made his presence felt in Ghana sports, especially football.
The dormant Black Stars that had missed three Afcon qualifiers on the trot, were invigorated at high cost but it paid off. The Stars toured Brazil twice on a serious training schedule and were motivated enough to win the original Afcon Cup for keeps beating Uganda 2-0 in the final at Accra Stadium in 1978.
It was a sparkling performance that earned the players a controversial promise of a house each.
Incidentally, Kutu Acheampong who made the promise obviously on behalf of the state, was ousted in a “palace coup” a few months after the Afcon show and since there did not seem to be any legal documentary evidence of the promise, it could sadly not be honoured when the new short lived civilian government of Dr Limann took office.
This unfulfilled promise has continued to haunt all GFA chairmen in their dealings with the Black Stars since 1978 starting from Lt Col Asiama who was FA boss at the time Jerry Rawlings remote control of the GFA was phenomenal since his 31st Dec 1981 coup Mr S. K. Mainoo was the unlucky man to have been chairman at the time of the coup when there was a debate by the Limann administration whether or not to allow the Black Stars to compete in Libya.
My good friend ‘SK’ was sacked by Rawlings on the eve of the team’s departure to Tripoli and replaced by Mr Zac Bentum. The change was so sudden Zac could not make the trip to Libya and Joe Lartey of the Sports Council led the team to the Afcon.
Can you believe that Rawlings’ administration saw seven different GFA bosses. They were S.K. Mainoo (81-82), Zac Bentum (82-83), Lawton Ackah-Yensu (83-84), Kate Caesar (1984), Elias Teye (84-86), Sam Okyere (86-89), Awuah Nyamekye (89-92), Joe Lartey (1992).
It was after all this charade that a workable system was found and we had Nana Brew Butler (9 3-97), Alhaji Jawula (1997-2001), Ben Koufie (2001-2003), Dr Nyaho Tamakloe (2004-2005), Kwasi Nyantakyi (2003-2019). After the hiatus of a so called Renovation Committee we now have Kurt Okraku.
And what is he up to? I am told he wants to amend the FA constitution so he could stay for 12 years.
Looks like he has found the people at sports ministry docile and not really concerned about the fast falling standard of our football.
Broadly speaking, the Ministry is in charge of all sports (football included), which has the biggest support. Ohene Djan knew this and he also knew that FIFA wants the FA to run the show “to the exclusion of all others” so he was FA Executive Secretary.
If you talk about football people he was one. He was running Real Republikans, the model club.
The model club idea was good but the modus operandi was questionable.
With so many young players eager to make money from football, I strongly believe this is the ideal time for the state to sponsor a club or an Academy like WAFA which has given Sogakope a real facelift.
It doesn’t matter if their products are sold abroad. They will eventually come to play for the Black Stars.
I suggest we take a look at our coaching system. The Ministry and the National Sports Authority should assist in the training of coaches. There is the urgent need to fill the vacuum created by the departed stalwarts like Sam Arday, Osam Duodu, Jones Atuquayefio and Kwasi Afranie.
You could see there is complete shortage of good local coaches otherwise a team like Kotoko won’t run to Burkina Faso in search of a coach.
This is not to show any disrespect to the Burkinabe but under normal circumstances Kotoko should be able to do better than this.
I am told the mini astro Turf playing fields started by the former Sports Minister are lying idle. This is not right.
Let the colts players get used to playing on good turfs early enough as we await another Sly Tetteh who will form a Liberty Professional team to build our next generation of the Black Stars.
Kwasi Nyantakyi was so lucky to benefit from Sly Tetteh’s products like Asamoah Gyan, Essien Sulley Muntari and co. Kurt should be dreaming of getting such a man of foresight to help raise the standard of the game instead of dreaming to be life GFA President.
Cheers everyone and keep loving sports.
