By: Kwame Twumasi-Fofie

I’ve said it before in an earlier article on this same platform, and I’m repeating it here that I’m not sure there’s any country in the world which is less attractive to serve with all of one’s heart and mind than my country, Ghana. The only possible exception may be when you are not a Ghanaian citizen.
This reminds me of an argument I had with a Nigerian friend of mine in Switzerland some time ago. It all started when I urged his son who was playing great youth football for Switzerland to continue working hard so that one day he could play for his father’s country, Nigeria, at senior level. Archie, my friend, would have none of that and made it clear to me that as long as he was alive that would never happen. His son, Stephen, would continue to play for Switzerland at all levels if he had the opportunity, and not Nigeria. I was disappointed that my fellow African would want his son to offer his services to his mother’s country instead of his own. Now, however, after seeing how we treat our national players I’ve been compelled to give Archie the proverbial ‘stone’.
The Competence of the Black Stars Versus All Other Institutions
The Black Stars have been called all sorts of names because we went to Brazil and came back ‘humiliated’ in the estimation of some Ghanaians. The mere thought of this has always made me want to find out which Ghanaian institutions have been performing more efficiently than our national soccer teams or specifically the Black Stars. Are we talking about the central government, local government or other state sponsored institutions? Can the competence and efficiency which we appear not to find with the Black Stars be found in the Education or Health Services where it’s common to find that officially engaged staff, can work for several months without being paid their salaries? Meanwhile, we don’t even have the competence to ensure that we stop paying salaries to former staff who may have either resigned or even died. Could it be in the police or perhaps the judiciary where we can find the efficiency and competence that the Black Stars don’t have? Let’s face it, aren’t we living in a country where incompetence and ineptitude has led us to a situation where instead of the ‘Millennium City’ that was promised us our capital city is now said to be the filthiest in the world?
Prior to the Ghana-Uganda match we were promised free entry only for the Ministry of Youth & Sports to turn around later to cancel the decision citing security concerns. How on earth could such an important decision be taken and communicated to the whole when as it turned out no prior consultations had been made with relevant agencies? If this is not incompetence, what is it? In short, therefore, we are making scapegoats of the Stars only because theirs is the line of least resistance but more importantly it is they who we think are being paid for not doing anything.
Interestingly, all the noise about our supposed poor performance in Brazil is because we did not perform as well as we did in our two previous attempts. In doing this we forget that even in the days that we dominated African football we were not able to qualify for the World Cup. So why do we seem to have taken it for granted that from now on our qualification to the World Cup would always be guaranteed? Perhaps we need to be reminded that after winning the Africa Cup for the last time in 1982 we failed to progress from the group stages in the 1984 edition. And for the three consecutive editions thereafter – 1986, 1988 and 2000 – we did not even qualify for Africa not to talk of World Cup.
We Are Still Beginners After All
The popularity of Cameroon in world football or world cup history in particular is not because they’ve been winning all their matches or brought medals home from world cup tournaments but because they’ve participated in the tournament on more occasions than any other African country – eight times – since their first participation in 1982. In all these, however, it’s only on one occasion – in 1990 – that they managed to qualify from the group stage. Four years later, in 1994, they finished last in their group with one point, scoring three and conceding nine, and in the process, being whipped 1-6 by Russia. In that tournament they were not managed by a Cameroonian version of Kwasi Appiah, but a world class coach, Henri Michel, who had previously coached France among other top teams. In Brazil 2014, Cameroon lost all three matches, conceding 9 goals and scoring only one. But their world didn’t come to an end thereafter. They have bounced back to winning ways and have beaten Cote d’Ivoire 4-1 in their last AFCON qualifier. In football, sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. This explains why coming soon after Brazil 2014, the Netherlands and Portugal have been beaten in their respective European Qualifiers by Czech Republic and Albania (of all countries) even though they failed to qualify for the World Cup.
Now if I may ask: where was Ghana in the five previous FIFA World Cup tournaments that Cameroon participated in before we first entered the scene in 2006? So who put it into our heads that just because we managed to scale through the group stages in our only two previous attempts we had all of a sudden become unbeatable? Specifically who can tell me how a country like Ghana losing 1-2 to the U.S. and a Portugal team featuring world best player Ronaldo, and the likes of Pepe and Nani, and drawing 2-2 with three-time world champions, Germany can be described as ‘abysmal performance’? As a matter of fact it is not unheard of for even former World Champions to exit a World Cup tournament without a win. We saw that in 2002 when then defending champions, France, finished bottom of the table with one point, conceding three goals and scoring none. And in Brazil it wasn’t Ghana that were beaten 1-5 but rather defending champions Spain, parading all their galaxy of stars Ghanaian sports presenters know so much about, and under the instructions of the same coach with whom they had previously won both the European and FIFA World Cups. Again, as we all remember, it was Brazil, arguably the greatest football nation in the world, and playing in front of their home ground, not Ghana, who were mauled 7-1. If anything it’s there that you talk about humiliation.
Was It The Black Stars Who Humiliated Ghana in Brazil?
Certainly if Ghana was disgraced in Brazil it never happened on the field and it wasn’t caused by the players. It was not because we lost two matches nor that we didn’t qualify to the next stage of the tournament either. After all, England, Italy and Spain, all previous Champions, and Portugal, with all their Ronaldo, didn’t surpass the group stages either. It was our trans-Atlantic hauling of three million US Dollars in cash by special flight that made the news, and as we all know, no player was involved in this. The Sports Ministry and the management team who were also beneficiaries of the money had all the time in the world to resolve this problem even before the team got to Brazil. And if you asked me I would tell you that the players had every right to insist on collecting their money before playing their last match because we know of earlier failed promises by authorities that have resulted in even medical doctors, university and polytechnic lecturers resorting to strikes actions.
Bottom Line Is That It’s All Envy
When you hear all the noise about the Black Stars appearance fee you may be tempted to believe it’s they who even coined the phrase or introduced it to world football. In the desire of the Ghanaian media to paint the players as greedy and unpatriotic they have sought to create the impression that it’s only they who receive appearance fees. Perhaps we have forgotten that even MPs who serve on boards of public institutions, committees and commissions are paid sitting allowances even while they continue to fool us that theirs is a ‘sacrificial job’. In fact even the President and his Ministers are paid per diem allowances when they travel outside on official duty at government expense.
The other day I heard a respectable personality complaining on radio that not even a Professor Emeritus would be paid the US$100,000 that was paid to the players as appearance fees. I find that regrettable because I’m sure this gentleman knows very well that there’s no President in the world who in a month earns what some top footballers earn in a week. On the other hand, University Lecturers, Medical Doctors, Engineers Lawyers and other professionals are not sold on the world market for millions of US dollars as it’s done with footballers. Neither are we aware of any periodic world contest of any group of professionals which attracts so much attention as a FIFA World Cup. Maybe if there was any such competition we might have had the opportunity to measure our own professionals against their counterparts from other parts of the world. In the mean time we better leave our players alone to benefit from their God-given talents. All the noise is borne out of disrespect and envy. Otherwise why aren’t we complaining about the US$82,000 ‘appearance fees’ paid to each of the seven members of the Stars’ Management Committee or the US$100,000 to members of their Technical Team as we now know from the World Cup Commission? If for nothing at all, at least what the Stars were demanding was not a bribe but what had been promised them.
After Sacking Kwasi Appiah What Next?
To me the very fact that we had to wait till 2006 to play in the World Cup for the first time tells me that ALL three coaches under whose guidance we qualified for our three participations need our commendation. And Kwasi Appiah happens to be one of them. He didn’t win either the World or Africa Cup but his story is not different from that of about 30 other coaches before him. Again, only a while ago we were said to be pursuing a ‘one-goal project’ but under Kwasi at least we’ve been scoring two or more in many of our matches including a notable 6-1 WC qualifier against Egypt. So what’s all the fuss about Kwasi Appiah? Before our match with Togo it was all over in the air that if he failed to win he was going to be sacked. But he wins 3-2 in an away match, days after drawing at home, and three days thereafter he’s sacked. Is this in itself not an example of the incompetence I’ve referred to earlier? The fact is that the people doing the sacking don’t even know the appropriate time to sack a coach. If they knew they were going to sack him why didn’t they do it immediately after the tournament in which he’s said to have performed poorly but rather wait after he has drawn one match and won the another and only two months after renewing his contract?
But while we can shop around for Serbian Coaches I wish to remind those calling for the Black Stars to be disbanded that to a very large extent we do not have any better players than those we took to Brazil. If anything at all it shouldn’t surprise anyone if we invite some among them we didn’t call for our last two matches.
Does The Ghanaian Media Have an Agenda Against The Stars?
Though it has been said over and over again that Ghana is a country of 24 million coaches it may be more appropriately said that the best of them are the Sports Presenters who you hear hours on end, daily on radio and TV stations. It is sad and ironic to hear some of them accuse our players of arrogance and disrespect when it is they who can sit in studios in Sunyani, Bolga and Drobo and question the competence of coaches like Arsene Wenger and Louis Van Gaal. Like Airtel’s Calibus they seem to ‘know e-vry-thing’ so much so that any selection or tactics of any coach which doesn’t go according to their own wishes is wrong. Wasn’t it some of them who reported and ‘confirmed’ on the very day of the tragic incident that Castro had been confirmed dead and Asamoah Gyan critically ill after both of them had drowned when riding a ski-jet at the Volta estuary? When it turned out to be false which one of them has come out to apologise for giving false information to the public? And as if that was not bad enough it is they again who are seeking to create the impression that it was Asamoah Gyan who attacked the Graphic Reporter. And it is these same people who are leading the crusade for Dede Ayew and Jonathan Mensah to be crucified for daring to say the obvious that their insistence on demanding what had been promised them doesn’t make them greedy, arrogant or unpatriotic.
Now, the irony is that it is the same people who are accusing our players of not being patriotic because they performed below their expectation who are directly or indirectly leading the crusade for Ghanaians to boycott matches of the Black Stars or even boo them. There are many who were praying hard for Ghana to lose against Uganda and Togo so they could use it as proof that Kwasi Appiah and his boys are indeed good for nothing. To these people the Stars made the ‘worst possible start’ to their 2015 AFCON qualification campaign because they DREW at home with Uganda even in spite of the boycott, boos and distractions. So now who is more patriotic – the players or those who prayed for their country to lose? It is a crying shame!


Kwame Twumasi-Fofie
kwametwumasifofie@yahoo.com