Black Stars assistant coach, Maxwell Konadu, has been given the responsibility to take charge of the local senior national team as they prepare for next year’s Championship for African Nations (CHAN) to be staged in South Africa from January 11 to February 1.

Chairman of the Local Black Stars Management Committee, Fred Pappoe told the Graphic Sports last Monday that after considering several options, they settled on Konadu due to his experience.

“There is no doubt that building a team as the local team is quite a challenging one and it will take one with such a varied background as Konadu to take up such a responsibility, so after carefully considering all the options, he has been handed the job and will be assisted by Dauda Lutterodt,” Mr Pappoe said.

Konadu’s appointment thus frees his boss, Kwasi Appiah, coach of the Black Stars, who was initially given the responsibility to also take charge of the Stars when he was appointed last year.

Mr Pappoe also said admited last Monday that they were faced with the challenge of raising a formidable team considering the exodus bandwagon in the country but said: the good thing is that we always have equally good players as replacement.”

Almost half of the players who played for the local Stars last year have all left for greener pastures while a number of players who were called-up for the qualifiers before Benin pulled out, have already joined the exodus team.

“We’ve lost goalkeepers Fatau Dauda and Daniel Agyei, Rashid Sumaila and Mahatma Otoo are also on their way out and the list goes on. That is quite a challenging task but there is some time to reassemble a team and that will engage the attention of the technical team once they get to work.

“It is a relief that some of the Under-20 players were already in the team and after the huge experience and exposure gained at the Turkey tournament, it will be good to have them in the team, but remember the selection is solely the perogative of the technical team.”

Mr Pappoe under whose chairmanship the Black Stars qualified for their two successive World Cups in 2006 and 2010, revealed that in order to make up for the lost time by not playing in the qualifiers, a comprehensive programme had been drawn up to adequately prepare the local team for the January

By the programme, the team will adopt weekly training session when the Premier League in September and move into serious camping in November when the league goes on break to make way for the national team to prepare. There will also be some international friendlies to provide some experience and exposure for the team before they embark on a training tour in January ahead of the tournament.

All that, though, will be subject to the availability of funds.