Another international competition, another disappointment and that again, raises an uncomfortable conversation about amateur boxing and whether there is the need for the administrators of the sport to try someone else apart from Ofori Asare as head coach of the Black Bombers.
For more than 10 years, Coach Asare has been in charge, and has guided the amateur boxers to some good outings, including guiding Samuel Takyi to a bronze medal at the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games two silvers and a bronze medal at the 2022 Commonwealth Games out of the nine boxers who competed.
Same results
This year, the Bombers were represented by 10 boxers at the Commonwealth games in Glasgow and of the number, only one, Amadu Mohammed won a bronze medal in the men's 55kg bantamweight division, losing his semi-final bout.
This mixed results have renewed calls for Coach Asare to perhaps, consider leaving the role and move up as a technical advisor, while a new person with fresh ideas and perspective is given the chance to see if things will be better.
Call for change
Indeed, stakeholders have since 2023, been calling for his replacement, arguing that there was the need for fresh perspective to coaching the boxers.
"We are often told that he has the institutional memory and the experience, but sometimes, it is also important that after 10 years, we take stock of the outcome of doing the same thing with the same person in charge.
"Until we try a new coach, we may not know what we are missing in the sport,"the stakeholders have said anything they revived their call for change.
And they may be right. Indeed, if dedication, passion, institutional knowledge and commitment were the only consideration for maintaining a coach and getting the results, then Coach Asare is no doubt the right person, given his long association with amateur boxing.
However, in modern times, those are not enough. Aside the experience and passion, it is also important to have a coach who can help his boxers improve on their speed, sustain high-intensity performances, and clean scoring.
More than a technical problem
In self defense, Coach Asare has blamed the mixed results his side usually record in international competitions on an all too familiar phrase of inadequate support to prepare the team well for those events.
That to a very large extent, is also true, and that is the reason Coach Asare must consider walking away from the role instead of continuing to stay on.
The issues have been the same for all the time he has been involved as an assistant and now the head coach. Nothing has changed: No standard national training facility for the boxers, no attention paid to their diet because there resources are not there.
This can be frustrating and it has an impact on the performance of the boxers he often assembles for competitions but he can not continue to blame the system alone.
Again, having the same teacher in class and each batch or cohort churning out the same results or outcomes call for a review of the teaching methods.
Time for a change
Coach Asare has been fortunate to have lasted more than a decade, because while he has enjoyed the patience from the Ghana Amateur Boxing Federation, his counterparts in another passionate sport for Ghana, football, have not been that fortunate to enjoy the patience of both the Ghana Football Association (GFA) and Ghanaians.
It is often not an easy decision to walk about from something we love to do and are passionate about, but it is also important to consider the larger interest -- the boxers and the nation's to be able to say that "I have done my best, but that has not been golden for the Bombers.and it is time to leave.
