Black Stars, a pampered group?

In Brazil, at the 2014 FIFA World Cup, Ghana's contingent staged an unfortunate drama that has left the country's image badly bruised in a manner never seen in the nation's contemporary sporting history.

The despicable episode, highlighted by the transportation of millions of dollars in physical cash from Accra to Rio de Janeiro to pay striking players, has become as much a documented part of the otherwise exciting tournament in Brazil as any of the positives of the ongoing Mundial.

And even as the circus fails to die off with Ghana's elimination after an embarrassing campaign in South America, the haunting experience scripted around the subjects of Coach Kwasi Appiah, the Ghana Football Association and players Sulley Muntari and Kevin-Prince Boateng, provides one more chance to straighten some curves in Ghana's sports administration.

Defender John Boye, scorer of an own goal in the must-win clash with Portugal, was reported by the international media to have kissed his $100,000 cash as officials settled the disputed appearance fees to the Black Stars. That ‘Kissing’ act had connotations than merely representing a player's folly or lack of enlightenment or both.

It also showed a nation's indiscretion, a lack of prioritisation, and a lack of political will to contain the kind of demand that makes mockery of the people's poverty standards which has seen their leaders cup in hand at the door of the developed world, begging for the kind of sums that resources back home could provide.

In real terms, each of the Black Stars players received more than ¢3 billion in the old currency - a staggering figure often muted by the redenominated equivalent of GH¢300,000 - for the one point they could salvage from three Group G games.

The financial commitment by the nation to the Black Stars, added to the emotional investment by the people into their games, have often left the football-crazy nation poorer in the end, whether in terms of ultimate results or emotional satisfaction or the financial benefits.

For a tournament that fetched $9.5million in appearance fees from FIFA, virtually every financial gain from qualification has been eroded by the massive spending on players' bonus packages, appearance fees, hotel accommodation, per diem, air tickets, and all other emoluments constructed into the so-called miscellaneous expenditure from the qualifying stage.

For a nation so intoxicated by politics, and every sight blurred by a political lens, the Black Stars have become one of the chief beneficiaries of a useless suspicion between government and opposition at different times as the ruling forces bend over to satisfy the wasteful cravings of a section of the citizenry.

Indeed, since government improved the bonus package for the Black Stars to induce the right motivation to prosecute the World Cup qualification agenda ahead of Germany 2006, the figures have multiplied too quickly to the extent that Ghana now pays a better bonus package than England and most of the rich nations playing football at the highest level.

Rather than accusing the players of unpatriotic tendencies, their attitude today is the direct result of the decisions of yesterday, aided by an unfortunate media regime driven by emotional and selfish characters parading as the conduit for the sometimes violent demands by disguised political voices.

To all intents and purposes (apologies to Mohammed Amin Lamptey), the question of patriotism may have long jumped out of the window, particularly when political leadership has failed to demonstrate it in true modest spending of the public purse. But what is doled out to football and its actors in contemporary times is a vulgar expression of extravagance, indiscretion and pure mismanagement of scarce resources - as though the political figures benefit directly.

In 2011 during Ghana's trouble-strewn participation in the All Africa Games in Maputo, Mozambique, then Sports Minister, Kofi Humado, attempted to confront the subject of bonuses for Ghanaian sports personalities with a bold voice. He saw a virtual discrimination in favour of football when the players of the Black Meteors and Black Princesses received encouraging winning bonuses after every match while their counterparts representing the country in boxing, volleyball, taekwondo, table tennis, swimming, cycling, badminton, track and field, etc., were left to grapple with meagre cash sums if they were able to win a medal.

In his view, the athletes - whether playing football, tennis or table tennis - were all Ghanaians and deserved equal treatment. What it meant was that football's bonus package needed to be trimmed drastically since the national budget could not support a wholesale increment of winning bonuses for all the  disciplines.

The abuse by the public, if measured by the response on a few radio networks to Mr Humado's intentions, was a scary tirade that expectedly killed the initiative instantly.

The media reflect society, indeed!

But in a country where the political class and others in management stand accused of plundering resources under the guise of salaries and allowances far in excess of the earnings of the average person, downsizing the astronomical bonus packages of the Black Stars has become a moral question.

But even before the subject would be adequately dealt with, the post-mortem of Ghana's World Cup campaign could witness major changes in the technical direction, with Coach Kwasi Appiah's ego equally bruised badly by the unfortunate confrontations with his squad.

When it was thought that he had acquired a boldness by dropping both Michael Essien and Boateng from his starting line-up against the USA, the excuse that he was waiting for his opponents to tire before unleashing his key stars proved both lame and dumb.

Essien's non-involvement in the remainder of the tournament answers the question of whether he was truly one of the ‘stars' Coach Appiah referred to. Instead, the coach appeared intent on satisfying a certain conviction that big-names such as Essien and Boateng could not be benched - for which reason the unsung Rabiu Mohammed and Jordan Ayew were sacrificed to contain the earlier pair.

How the GFA has continued to deny the obvious, including the revolt in camp after the loss to the USA and Boateng's unwillingness to play in Ghana during the qualifiers, may be someone's theoretical approach to information management. But the repercussions, as seen in Muntari's violent reponse toward officialdom, seemed a destined end from the onset.