Veteran Sports Journalist, Ekow Asmah, has expressed displeasure at the country’s handling body of football, the Ghana Football Association (GFA).
He indicated that, there will only be hope for Ghana football “if we inspire and invest in the younger generations.”
“We need value for money so if you don’t know the worth of money, then there’s clearly a problem. Let’s inspire the next generation to understand that Ghana is the destination for sports champions. Looking at the country’s history of sports, boxing has managed to produced 10 World Champions. In football, we’ve also won AFCON on 4 occasions. For the track field sports, we were strong on the continent and even on the international scene until recently.
So the country has proven to be indeed the destination for sports champions. But for some obvious reasons, we’ve been low on standards. Boxing has become the only sports putting Ghana on the map now. We have to inspire the younger generations because we’re known to be champions and we’ve always been champions,” he told Samuel Eshun, host of the Happy Morning Show.
Nonetheless the veteran journalist stated that, Ghana’s football handlers have failed the country. Mr. Asmah believes the leaders of GFA and the sector ministry have used the management of the federation to their own benefits.
“Now it is left for us to deal with our leadership. Our leaders have failed us so far when it comes to sports. Legally, I can quiet remember when we performed miserable during the 2014 tournament. Then President Mahama tasked a commission to look into the issues and flaws of our footballing fraternity. One of the key issues raised by the commission was that, we don’t have to allow only GFA to manage affairs of the Black Stars. That the GFA needs to work hand in hand with the Sports Ministry to manage the national teams and that is where we fell short.
Since then, the Sports Ministry has left everything for the GFA to handle. The only time they come together is when there seems to be business in the sport. The management of our national teams has now turned into business. We should never forget this because we keep spending more money, more so, the two bodies have used the sport as a business opportunity. The rest of the public has been left out of the equation and its strictly business for them. So yes, it is good to invest and inspire the coming generations to become the legends. It is also important to tackle our leadership failures. Without hope there’s nothing but our leaders have failed us,” he said.
He further called on the media to join hands and push for authorities who misuse such platforms for their own benefits to be punished. “They have done it for a long time that they now believe they would never get punished for it. Once there are no repercussions, they would continue to waste money. It’s up to us the media to be determined and call for the heads of those who mismanage our funds in sports.”
By: Jude Tackie
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