Wanted: An honest non-political enquiry
For most Ghanaians, the World Cup is effectively over. Ghanaians ended their World Cup not on the day the Black Stars were eliminated but two days earlier when news of the physical airlifting of US$3 million to the team became public. The disgust which most people felt was palpable.
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However, Ghanaians largely suspended their anger long enough to hope the team would overcome the enormous odds and qualify from the group stage.
Accra Mall Fan Park
Throughout the tournament, I have used the Accra Mall Fan Park as a kind of barometer to measure people’s reaction to whatever is going on at various stages. The fan park attracted hundreds of football enthusiasts, shoppers, shop workers and taxi drivers whose station had been taken over to set up the entertainment.
Naturally, the place was packed on Black Stars match days, but other matches were also well patronised. However, the number of people enjoying the tournament at the place has dropped significantly since the Stars’ loss to Portugal and when I went there last Saturday, most of the chairs had gone and the place was partially back to being a taxi rank.
As I do every time I go there, I spoke with a few people, mostly young men out to enjoy the game with their friends. On that occasion, the game going on between Brazil and Chile, deadlocked at one-all, was not our main topic. And it wasn’t just us; all around everyone was talking about the Black Stars and the failure in Brazil.
Indeed, for the first time ever I heard someone remark that the Brazilians were playing like the Black Stars; and he meant it as an insult.
Ministers at helm of affairs
I wish one of the President’s ears had been trained on our conversation. Generally speaking, I think the President might have misjudged the mood of the country by reassigning instead of sacking his Minister of Sports and his deputy.
In a way, it would probably be better to have left them in place rather than do what appears to most people like a hasty effort to save them from the public roasting the pair deserve.
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People are angry because when you amplify what has gone on with the Black Stars in Brazil into a bigger picture, they see officials in all kinds of situations getting away with incompetence or corruption; in fact, more often both. It appears that accountability is only a paper concept which does not have any practical application.
The Brazil debacle must have an owner or owners and the two reassigned gentlemen must be at the forefront of a whole queue of people who must now be falling over themselves to resign and apologise to Ghanaians.
This is the view of most Ghanaians.
However, I have a slightly different view. I see that what we have witnessed is only the tip of a huge pile of extremely smelly garbage which has been pilling up for years. While the present administration must take the rap for the rot, we will be doing ourselves a disservice if we only concentrate on the present sports administration and its ancillary infrastructure.
Sulley Muntari’s remarks
Look at it like this: What Sulley Muntari is alleged to have SAID holds the key to a lot of what has gone wrong with the administration of our participation in big tournaments for a very long time. Muntari’s alleged comments have been doing the rounds on social media platforms over the past several days and have struck a chord with many people.
In essence, no one can deny the obvious fact that taking scores of officials, who, apparently, have no serious roles to play, in tournaments at public expense is a drain on our beleaguered finances.
This is absolute commonsense.
It did not start from this World Cup or even the two previous ones. It has been standard practice for decades. And unless we speak about this at high decibel levels for the government to do something about it, this situation will continue because a sense of entitlement has developed around the practice.
As Muntari allegedly told a GFA official, “You receive bonuses for no work done. You are a drain on the government; you ALWAYS make money on our backs and use EVERY tournament to make money…” (Caps mine for emphasis.)
The idea is not to deny legitimate payments to officials but the system must be open, honest and transparent at all points in order to rid it of this sense of darkness and complicity.
The Commonwealth Games are coming soon and we may have the absurdity of a country with no current serious athletics programme being represented with so many officials. Apart from draining the nation’s finances, this practice causes resentment among the athletes. I am not sure that what Muntari allegedly said was his exclusive sentiment.
Brazil Fiasco
The silver lining to this whole Brazil fiasco could be that we could come out with a better system. But I doubt it. We need an honest, non-political enquiry in order to streamline the process. If people are found to be guilty of something, they should be sanctioned, but I would want to look at systems and institutions very carefully and critically at this stage.
However, as we know from secondary school science, to every action there is a reaction; as we want an honest enquiry, there are people who will fight to frustrate that effort.
It will be up to the highest authority of the land to cast a vote either in favour of the action or the reaction. It can’t be both ways.
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