Come again, GFA! II

As expected, the Ghana Football Association (GFA) at the weekend activated its communications machinery and was at its spinning best, all in a bid to restore its battered image.

Defending the indefensible has been the hallmark of some Ghanaians, especially some people in responsible positions who are expected to account for their stewardship to the Ghanaian taxpayer but rather choose to rationalise their actions and inaction.

Unfortunately in Ghana and most developing countries, it appears that no public official makes mistakes — they are more than saints.

But as a people, we tend to forget that “There comes a time in a man’s life when he must prefer meaningful DEATH to a meaningless life,” apologies to the late Benigno Aquino  of The Philippines who gallantly resisted the autocratic rule of then dictator President Ferdinand Marcos until Aquino was callously murdered under bizarre circumstances.

In his defence of the GFA’s action to sack Coach Kwasi Appiah, Mr Ibrahim Sani Dara, the Head of the football controlling body’s communications directorate, was at his communications worst rationalising what the GFA had done on two programmes on JOY FM over the weekend.

As if to tell the nation that ‘it is only a fool who does not change his decision’, Mr Dara said he saw nothing wrong with the GFA’s decision to part ways with Coach  Appiah. 

Hear him: “The amount quoted in the media as severance award to be paid to the coach is overblown. The lawyers of the two parties, the GFA and Coach Appiah, are yet to meet and agree on the amount, which will be between $100,000 and $150,000.”

He said the agreement stipulated that the coach would be paid three months’ salary in lieu of notice.

 And in apparent justification of the GFA’s action, Mr Dara opined: “Since the World Cup, the team has played two competitive matches and a number of issues have cropped up. Indeed, a lot of things have happened and in moving the team forward in that direction, the management of the Black Stars has to take crucial decisions as things DO CHANGE RAPIDLY.” (Caps ours.)

Placing this on record, the question that arises in the opinion of the Daily Graphic is: “Do things change rapidly only on the issue of the one who coaches the Black Stars and not the people who manage or constitute the GFA?”

Are Ghanaians now being told that a coach who played two competitive matches, drew one and won one, bagging FOUR points from a maximum six, has failed because ‘things do change rapidly?’

Was it not the same GFA President, Kwesi Nyantakyi, who, at the post-World Cup press conference, explained issues to Ghanaians and, together with Coach Appiah, offered an unqualified apology to Ghanaians for their acts of omission and commission at Brazil 2014?

Again, was it not the same President Nyantakyi who used the same platform to renew the GFA’s unalloyed confidence in the competence of the coach and openly declared that he was free to continue with his duty as the head coach of the Black Stars?

Was his declaration to the effect that ‘we are solidly behind the coach’  mere rhetoric? What happened that after those public assurances and declarations, the GFA later told the nation that after discussions held between the Ministry of Youth and Sports and the GFA, it had been agreed that the Black Stars’ technical team needed to be augmented?

Subsequent to that, the issue of a technical adviser to assist the coach then had emerged and out of the blue the bombshell — Coach Appiah has been fired, relieved of his post, dismissed, sacked, etc.

Mr Dara of the GFA maintains that verbs such as ‘dismissed’ are too harsh. The Daily Graphic challenges him to tell the nation what has actually happened to the Black Stars’ coach in plain language.

Again, the GFA had earlier made the nation to believe that the football controlling body held prior discussions with the coach, who said he did not have any objection to the proposal for technical support and even suggested Coach Ben Koufie as his preference for the new technical adviser position proposed by the GFA.

As a responsible newspaper of repute, the Daily Graphic then set its investigative machinery in motion and uncovered that the GFA had discarded Koufie, citing age, and then settled on three coaches, namely the Yugoslav (Milo), a Dane and a German.

And with that, everything pointed to the fact that Coach Appiah’s days with the Black Stars as head coach were numbered.

The Daily Graphic is also not oblivious of the wranglings within the GFA’s executive, as well as management committees, which appeared sharply divided on the issue of retention or otherwise of the coach.

The bone of contention, the Daily Graphic is reliably informed, is that the GFA President has unilaterally put the cart before the horse by not allowing discussions on the World Cup technical committee’s report before making public declarations on the future of the coach.

So with the failure of the GFA to discuss the technical committee’s report, it became obvious to members of the two committees that only time would tell as to the kind of explosion that was bound to hit Ghana football. 

To some of the members, therefore, what is happening between the GFA and Coach Appiah can appropriately be described in four words: “I told you so!”

The Daily Graphic believes that what is happening between the GFA and Coach Appiah could have been avoided if the GFA President had engaged in broad consultations with the totality of members of the committees on the way forward, in which case he would not have been portrayed as running a one-man or sectional show.

It is an open secret that some personalities within the GFA are openly dissatisfied with the way the GFA is being run today.  They cite lack of accountability and transparency as one of the problems bedeviling the football controlling body and the Daily Graphic will certainly revisit those challenges.