Ibrahim
Sunday was African Footballer of the Year in 1971. The former Asante
Kotoko captain, who led the team to the African Cup of Champions
(predecessor to the Champions League) the same year, in a career that
spanned over two decades, also played in Germany for Werder Bremen, and
took part in two African Nations Cup. Born in 1944 to a Nigerian father
and a Ghanaian mother in Koforidua, Eastern Ghana, the midfielder, who
also played for the Black Stars at the 1972 Olympics, has coached
Ashanti Kotoko, which he led to the Champions League trophy in 1983, as
well as Ashanti Susubirbi, Ashanti Goldfields, FC 105 of Gabon and
Africa Sports of Abidjan, which he also led to the continental title in
1992. Sunday now runs the MTN Sports Academy in Ghana, a job he combines
with helping the FA’s grassroots development programme. The former
midfielder, who never hides his dismay at the sudden fall of Nigerian
football, told CHRISTIAN OKPARA recently in Accra that the Eagles would
find their wings again only if the administrators re-order their
priorities. He also spoke on other issues bordering on African
football.IBRAHIM Sunday is one of the architects of the
recent upsurge in the fortune of Ghanaian football. He is an excellent
coach, who has in the last two decades been involved in the
restructuring of football in the country known as Brazil of Africa. But
nothing in Sunday’s carriage betrays his reputation as one of the most
talented football persons ever to come out of Africa.Since
retiring from active football, the coach, who won the old African
Champions Cup as a player and twice as a coach, is currently working
with other retired players and coaches in building a strong future for
Ghanaian football. His current vocation is training the youths to become
future stars, and in the process of doing that he traverses all parts
of Ghana in search of talented youngsters.The former captain of
the famous Ashanti Kotoko, who runs the MTN Sports Academy, believes
that building up the youths is the only way a country can be sure of
getting steady supply of talents to challenge for international honours.
To that extent, he sees his job as an honourable task worthy of all the
sacrifices it demands of him.Speaking to The Guardian recently
in Accra, Sunday said Ghana’s youth development programme is a concerted
effort of the football association, which is tapping from the
experience of retired players and veteran coaches to create a bright
future for the country’s game.According to Sunday, the MTN Sports
Academy is an educational organisation that trains children from ages
eight to 10 bracket, with those exceptional ones moving on to the
under-17 cadre from where they join the professional ranks. We groom
children to acquire good education and at the same time develop their
skills to make them rounded players.“The secret of Ghanaian
football is that we came to realize that the future of every nation
rests on the youths. So, we thought we should train the youth to be
prepared to step up to defend the country.“The football
association now is seriously engaging the services of some of the
veteran coaches in the youth development programme. I am a member of the
juvenile committee trying to reorganize and lay the foundation for the
future. In the programme, we have Osei Kuffour, Odartey Lamptey, Afrenie
and myself.“These are people who played the game at all levels
coming together to resuscitate the game; so what people are seeing now
is the result of that process. But, we are not finished yet,” he
enthused.Sunday, who sees himself as 100 percent Ghanaian, still
has some fondness for Nigeria, a country he calls his second home. He
believes that Nigeria has the potential to become one of the best
football playing countries in the world because of its large population
and the number of youths who play the game.However, to rank among the world’s best,
he advises Nigeria to learn from the Ghana experience and do the right
things.According
to Sunday, “Nigeria should forget the age-old recourse to cheating in
youth competitions and concentrate on building the young ones.“You
can never cheat nature. So, if a 30-year-old man is used to play in an
Under-17 competition he will soon fade away, thereby denying the country
the opportunity of training players that will take over the senior
team.“Ghana in the dark days won some youth competitions, still
we could not step up to the main thing because the players soon faded
away. But now that we have Under-17 players playing in youth
competitions we are assured that barring any unforeseen disaster they
will mature to play in the game for a long time.”The Ghanaian
model, according to Sunday, recognizes the fans’ demand for victory in
every competition no matter the level, adding, however, that the
managers also believe that the fans would be more satisfied when they
see their team progressing smoothly.He said, “we always want to
win but we cannot win all the time. We have to first think of developing
well because if you develop well the future will definitely be bright.
But if you think of winning age group competitions today with old
players, you are shooting yourself on the foot. Nigeria can regain its
status in international football only when it develops the right youth
culture.”One other area Sunday wants the Nigerian football leaders to look into is
deployment of veteran coaches to the good of the game.According
to him, the idea of doing away with veteran coaches simply because
younger ones have emerged on the scene is wrong because the young coach
also needs to learn and develop his skills.“A young coach may not
have the patience for children, and because the older coaches have
lived with children for a long time they will know how to handle them
through all the stages of their development.“I must also say that
everybody cannot be a coach at the national team level. I believe that
the veteran coaches are more suited to dealing with the youths, so they
should be the ones working more at the grassroots.”Sunday also
advises Nigerians to forget about seeing their team back among the big
nations immediately because the damage to the country’s football was
done over time.He said, “In French they say “reculer pour mieux
sauter,” which means that you have to go back to jump forward. At the
moment the Nigerian team is not functioning the way everybody wants, so
you have to go back to the grassroots, forget about winning now, think
of developing the game and it won’t take you much time to bounce back.“If
Nigeria changes its ways and begins to do the right thing, it will
definitely bounce back to where it belongs. But if it continues with the
unnecessary quest for instant victory and continues to do the wrong
things, it will remain stagnant. There are no two ways about it.”The
Asante Kotoko legend also believes that good administration must be put
in place in the bid for sustainable development of the game, adding
that only those with the desire to work for Nigerian football should be
allowed to manage the game.He added: “I believe that the current
administrators should give way for footballers to manage the game
because what we have now are people who know next to nothing about the
game.“People come into office and tell you that they want to
learn and in the process they cause more harm than good to the game. We
should allow those who have seen it all as footballers and
administrators to run the game.“Football administration should
not be left in the hands of those who see it as an avenue to enrich
themselves. There will always be crisis in a situation where people see
football as a cow to be milked dry. Footballers must rise to take up the
mantle of leadership.”