When a nation’s heart got broken

Never has the nation’s heart been so broken in a sporting event than what happened to the Black Stars in the World Cup in faraway Brazil.

Before the 2014 World Cup tournament, there were high hopes that the ‘boys’ were going to bring honour to the nation and to themselves. In fact, so much was the imaginative mix of old-fashioned grandeur and boastful talk that Ghanaians at some point had an arrogant and cocksure anticipation of having the global diadem ensconced at the Flagstaff House at the end of the competition.

Songs were composed in honour of the Stars, drama sketches pontificating the wizardry of the players were put up and streets were painted and adorned with effigies of leading players. Up until when it all went burst, the Black Stars and, by extension, the technical team were treated as demigods.

All the same, with the progressive performance of the team ever since their maiden appearance at the 2006 World Cup, the flattery and praises heaped on them was to be expected. 

Without a shred of doubt, I can stick my neck out and say that the boys are good and can be compared to any team anywhere in the world. Unfortunately, something snapped.

If one critically analyses the games the Black Stars played, it can be concluded that in none of them were the Stars outclassed. And if they were, it has now come to light now that all was not well.  On hindsight you can easily see that there was no vim in their play. The urge to die a little for their country was gone.

Following their exit from the tournament, Ghanaians are beginning to put pieces together to make meaning out of the avalanche of stories that are being told of what really transpired to put the country in that disgraceful circumstance that it currently finds itself. 

As expected, the blame game has begun. While a section of the players blame the management and technical team, they on the other blame the players for the disastrous and embarrassing failure.

There are two things that, for me, stand out in this whole brouhaha; the large contingent of members of the Ghana Football Association (GFA) and apparent lack of discipline in camp. 

What were all the over 40-member contingent of officials doing in Brazil? What was the role of each one of them? 

I welcome the decision by Parliament to call the leadership of the Ghanaian contingent to explain what transpired at the tournament.

I blame indiscipline in camp on the lack of control and supervision on the part of the technical team. The eruption that arose between the players and some members of the management team did not just happen. It was long in coming. The players had seen the lavish lives the officials were leading in Brazil and were determined not to allow them to piggyback on their sweat and toil.

Of course, the aggrieved players were wrong in taking matters into their hands with regard to the strife between Sulley Ali Muntari and Moses Armah. But truth be told, the player’s pent up feelings had boiled over. 

Remember that in 2006 after the team returned to Ghana from the World Cup in Germany, the gossip was that an amount was deducted from the players’ appearance fees.

There was also report of some fee that was owed the players which was outstanding at the time and it had to take the intervention of John Mensah’s blockage of the frontage of the office of the GFA  with his car for officials to know how serious the players had become and pay the monies owed them.

They certainly did not want a repeat of that and so demanded what was due them. But the surprise of all was the government’s commitment to load $3 million because the players were agitating for their money. It broke all rules in the books, most seriously the one set by the Bank of Ghana restricting transactions in foreign currency. 

Why could the government, for instance, not call the bluff of the players and ask them to abandon the tournament and come home? 

Of course the football association and, by extension, the country would have been fined by the world football authority, FIFA, but for me that would have been a lesser disgrace than flying an aeroplane loaded with money and followed by news agencies in helicopters giving live coverage.

The President, Mr John Dramani Mahama, has come out to defend his decision to allow the money to be sent out to the players but I beg to differ. 

He may have tried to persuade them to rescind their threat but I believe the push was not hard enough. Being the father of the nation who is held in high esteem, the players would have listened to his persistent plea  but as it is, he panicked.

I support the call for a full investigation into what happened in Brazil, and never again should we allow a thing like that to happen. Long live Ghana football.