Members of Parliament have expressed disappointment at the abysmal performance of the senior national team the Black Stars at the ongoing African Cup of Nations in Cameroon.
The Black Stars fell to an unprecedented early exit from the competition and quashed expectations of many across the continent and the world as one of the top teams in Africa.
The team managed a solitary one point from a possible nine, losing to Morocco 0-1, drawing with Gabon 1-1 and amazingly losing to AFCON debutants Comoros Island 2-3.
The MPs described the Black Stars performance as the worst ever considering in past AFCON competitions where the team exited in the group stage, they still managed to garner at least three points..
The MPs were contributing to a statement on Wednesday 26th January, 2022 that stood in the name of the Ranking Member on Sports, Hon. Wisdom Kobina Woyome.
He attributed the poor performance to poor management in terms coach selection, player selection and poor coordination pre-tournament preparation.
He said, “The poor performance on the field of play such as player coordination, in-fighting, technical deficiencies and confusion can only be attributed to poor management decisions by the leadership of the Football Association and government.”
Mr. Woyome lamented that Ghana’s performance in various sports competitions, not just football, keeps dwindling because of a number of factors including mass player exodus, inadequate investment in domestic football and lack of proper sports development structures.
He averred that for Ghana to see some positive turns in football especially government would need to initiate a holistic sports development agenda and adopt short and long term approaches to restore the sector from the grassroots to the top.
“There is the need to rethink the quality of the investments being made in sports today.”
“Some resources should also go into training home professional as in players and management team with recognized certification in good standing to be used locally and for export for short to long term results, here the need for our Sports College with campuses spreading through the country comes into sharp focus,” he said.
The South Tongu legislator appealed to government and private investors to invest in the football industry to make the local leagues competitive to help re-clothe Ghana with the pride of having formidable teams.
In his contribution, MP for Okaikoi Central Patrick Yaw Boamah called for a probe into player selection to the national teams where good players are ignored because they do not have ‘godfathers to hold their hands.’
The Football Association, he noted, is taking cover from FIFA’s directive that governments should not be involved in football matters but stressed the government cannot continue to provide sponsorship to the national teams and still stand aside as things do disarray.
He called for a second look at the national team to unravel why certain players are refusing call-ups and warned either these problems are addressed sooner than later, Ghana might as well forget the world cup play-off against Nigeria.
There were many other contributions from members who all called for immediate action to salvage the image of the team before the next competitive match for the Black Stars.
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