Franz Vanderpuye takes a look at Ghana soccer and sees a gradual slip into darkness: The epithet on Ghana soccer doesn't read well. That there is literary a state of despair among Ghanaians tells everything about the current state of the game.

The disastrous exit of Accra Hearts of Oak from the African club champions League by an incredible 5-1 scoreline has re-opened the debate as to Ghana's place in African football.

Very few could have imagined the African Super Champions, Hearts of Oak, being kicked out under humiliating circumstances from a tournament that they had conquered with terror just some few months ago.

Whenever our soccer teams fall, we always have ready-made excuses: 'confusion in camp; we were robbed; we were "unlucky"; foreign coaches are not effective; local coaches are not experienced '

Obviously, the same excuses never apply to our opponents whenever our teams win. Various theories are propounded to explain Ghana's poor performance in sports, particularly football.

In our desperate attempts to find reasons for our teams' poor performances, we often resort to alibis. No one wants to take the blame.

This argument is, however, not intended to discount in any way the horrifying and bizarre circumstances surrounding the Hearts defeat in Congo. Hearts of Oak may not be too used to defeats in recent times, considering their devastating performance last year in both domestic and international championships. Last week's tamed exit from the Champions League at Brazzaville was therefore painful.

There are credible reports to suggest that the Ghanaian club side was subjected to shabby treatment prior to the match, all in an attempt to wage both physical and psychological warfare on them, to put them in a disadvantaged position.

Reports of such treatments filter in whenever Ghanaian teams go out to play their counterparts in several parts of the continent. It will therefore be na?ve to dismiss the Hearts complains.

However, it is time we got off our high horses and got back to basics. The problems facing sports in Ghana go beyond boardroom cheating by international sports controlling bodies and our counterparts around the continent.

The senior national team, the Black Stars, began the journey to the minefields of World Cup qualification with the ominously unproductive squad of millionaire players, imbued with institutionalised arrogance who appear to view the privilege of representing their country as a chore.

This attitude from our players was complemented by a self-serving FA which, itself, was operating under the whims and caprices of a larger-than-life sports minister. What we had was a compelling testimony to the collective failure of a sporting discipline that is considered the passion of the nation.

The sparkling performance of Hearts last year was a personal achievement by the club and not necessarily a by-product of a well-fashioned national effort.

Beyond the shabby treatment meted out to Hearts in Brazzaville, some analysts believe that their runaway supremacy at the domestic stage is becoming a curse in disguise; that it is blunting the team's competitive edge.

Others dismiss this theory, pointing rather to the larger issues confronting Ghana soccer and the never-ending series of theatrical nights in the game's organisation and administration.

The musical chairs game being played with the appointment of a substantive Head of the senior national team is a classical example. Fred Osam Duodu is back on the job, four months after being relieved of the post, taking over from the very man who succeeded him, Jones Attuquayefio.

The comedy of errors that have characterised the appointment of a coach for the Black Stars is compounded by an FA without a head and, to a larger extent, lack of a substantive minister to formulate policies to guide the game in the country.

For Coach Osam Duodu, the silhouettes of his persecutors are already showing. Even though he had nothing to do with the Black Stars' virtual elimination from the World Cup, the simmering anger in Ghanaians could explode into something else if he fails to lead the nation to CAN 2002 in Mali.

His alibi had better been convincing in the event of elimination in the continental tournament. Otherwise, he will yearn for a sanctuary that might not be readily available.

After Ghana's humiliating performance in the World Cup qualifying series, one was forced to admire the wisdom of a fellow Ghanaian who had told a compatriot: "I am no longer going to watch that lot. I've had enough of the mess in Ghana soccer to last for the rest of the new century."