After the Black Stars defeat, let us focus on the future
Right from the preparatory stages (qualifying stages), the playing of friendly tournaments, player selection and the payment of bonuses or how much to spend on each player, Ghanaians took a keen interest in the progress of the national football team, the Black Stars.
After debating whether the state had to send supporters to cheer the team or not, as well as the utterances of the deputy Minister of Youth and Sports, Mr Joseph Yamin, we were finally there at the World Cup for the third consecutive time.
It appears we started on a false note. We are told there were many Black Stars management team members too in Brazil. Did we need all those numbers there?
Then we lost our first match against the USA, dampening the spirit of the people. We played our hearts out and held Germany to a 2-2 drawn game, hoping we would qualify for the next stage of the competition.
Then during our preparation to meet Portugal, the appearance fee issue came up and Ghana had to carry $3million to Brazil to pay the players, making a mockery of ourselves in the comity of nations.
With the agitation in camp, coupled with the expulsion of two players, we lost and got kicked out of the tournament.
Then the postmortem began. Players blamed officials and vice versa, and some people called for the dismissal of the Minister of Youth and Sports, the coach and the members of the Ghana Football Association (GFA) .
Subsequently, the President announced that a technical committee would be set up to do a postmortem of our participation in the tournament.
The Ghana Bar Association (GBA) also entered the fray yesterday, chastising the government for bowing to pressure from the players to airlift millions of dollars to Brazil.
On the surface, one may ask, what will all the call for a probe achieve? Many of the reasons for our failure at the World Cup are known.
Perhaps, what is not known is the lessons we can take from Brazil to prepare for the future. And to begin with, it is time we appreciated that if we do not plan our activities we are bound to fail.
Certainly, some people must answer for our failure in Brazil. For if for nothing at all, the people who use state money for public projects must be able to account for their stewardship.
The Daily Graphic calls for the deliberations of the committee to be open, transparent and to involve everybody so that the outcome will help to reform Ghana football.
Very soon, we will start preparations for AFCON 2016 and World Cup 2018, as well as other tournaments.
Never again should we allow some of the negative attitudes displayed by Team Ghana in Brazil 2014 rear their ugly heads in future tournaments.
We must manage our affairs better in future tournaments to give a better account of ourselves as football’s standard bearers on the continent. Brazil 2014 exposed the bad and ugly side of Ghana.
