... This Time, No Interview ...
Ghana Football Association Chairman, Mr Ben Koufie, says that the country’s next expatriate coach will not go through a panel interview as had been the practice in the past. Instead, the FA will identify the most suitable coach and appoint him outright. The FA boss also confirmed that Abedi Ayew Pele has been mandated to recruit the right coach for Ghana.

Following criticism of the FA’s appointment of Yugoslav Millan Zivadinovic and German Burkhard Ziese, both of whose performance and conduct fell below expectation, Koufie expects the association to be more meticulous while he personally does not want to get involved in the selection process.

“We are in search of a good coach and I have decided to distance myself a little bit because I’ve been involved in two failures,” Koufie told reporters.

The FA Chairman believes that it is more effective if the Management Board is allowed to recruit a coach of its choice as pertains to some top footballing nations.

Abedi, in an earlier interview with the Graphic Sports confirmed that negotiations are far advanced for Ghana to appoint a third expatriate coach under their term of office.

The country’s Sports Ambassador Extraordinaire has had faithful talks with French coach Jean-Marc Nobilo, while Briton Tony Woodcock has expressed his interest in the job made vacant after the FA terminated Ziese’s appointment. Nobilo, who is currently the Technical Director of the Lebanese FA, was recently in the country to hold talks with the GFA.

Abedi hinted this paper that the FA is likely to conclude a deal with Nobilo next week for him to prepare the Black Stars for their World Cup qualifier against Somalia next month.

The former national skipper plans to play a more active role in the affairs of the national team but he does not want to dabble in technical matters.

The next coach will be given additional duties with the junior national teams, especially the Black Meteors.

“Right now the foundation is weak, we are not producing a lot of good young players who can take over from the present players,” Abedi said.

We suffered a similar fate when myself and (Anthony) Yeboah and others retired. There weren’t very good players to fill the vacancy and it affected the team. This is what we want to reverse by paying more attention to the colts and younger national teams.”

Last Friday Koufie confirmed that the chapter on Ziese was closed and it was about time the nation looked ahead and redress the mistakes of the Zivadinovic and Ziese era.