Abysmal Black Stars need rescue - After 42 years trophy drought

Sleeping giant, Ghana, is teetering on the edge of an embarrassing exit from Africa's premier football tournament for the first time in two decades as the Black Stars’ 2025 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) qualification campaign is in tatters.

With just two points from the maximum 12 points, the Black Stars are currently languishing in third place in Group F behind Angola who booked their ticket last Tuesday, and Coach Kwasi Appiah's Sudan, who need just a point in their last two games against whipping boys Niger and Angola to pick the remaining slot.

As it stands now, only a miracle can save Ghana from a repetition of the Tunisia 2004 AFCON miss, as Coach Otto Addo and his men face intense pressure from Ghanaians to restore the glory of yesteryear.

The straw that broke the camel's back was last Tuesday's harrowing 0-2 defeat to Sudan in the Libyan city of Benghazi, following a disappointing goalless draw game in Accra five days earlier.

Considering the huge financial investment the nation makes in the senior national team, including Ghana Football Association (GFA) officials and their assigns, the spontaneous reaction from Ghanaians for a change in direction for Ghana football on the back of the team’s poor results did not come as a surprise.

Ghanaians’ pent up anger stems from the fact that the Black Stars have suffered two consecutive group stage exits at AFCON 2021 and AFCON 2023 under the current GFA administration headed by Kurt Edwin Simeon-Okraku, aside from the first-round elimination at the Qatar 2022 FIFA World Cup, which FA officials regarded as a success to justify  a $100,000 bonus payment for each of the seven Black Stars Management Committee members.

However, some Ghanaians who held a contrary view considered a first-round exit by the Black Stars at the Mundial as a mediocre performance. To them, the $700,000 allowance to the management committee members could have been better spent on developing youth football or upgrading the nation's poor football pitches.

These, among other issues, represented the spillover effect of the anger which exploded after the Benghazi nightmare, as Ghanaians demanded immediate reforms to stem the tide.

The height of the frustration was amply demonstrated by a clamour for the return of former Black Stars coach, Kwasi Appiah, who masterminded Ghana's demolition. Indeed, some Black Stars players openly confronted their colleagues immediately after the match for letting down the entire nation with their poor showing.

Clarion call

Amid the brouhaha, two accomplished Ghanaian soccer brains have called for an urgent revolution in Ghanaian football following the Black Stars' ignominious 2025 AFCON qualifying campaign that has left them on a cliffhanger.

Citing sheer incompetence and inexperience on the part of the GFA top hierarchy and the team's head coach, Otto Addo, the two experts believe that until some drastic measures are urgently adopted to arrest the situation, there would be no hope in sight for Ghana football.

United States-based Licence A coach, Robert Sackey, and the Chairman of the Ghana League Clubs Association (GHALCA), Kudjoe Fianoo, poured out their frustrations in separate interviews with the Daily Graphic shortly after last Tuesday's disastrous outcome.

Competition, commitment, performance

For his part, Coach Sackey, who announced his presence in Ghana football in a scouting role during the Black Stars' maiden FIFA World Cup appearance in Germany in 2006, said the alarming rate at which Ghana’s football was declining was due to the attitude of the football authorities who ran the game as if it was their personal property.

"Instead of developing our youth system and building a strong foundation to feed our senior national team, we would rather go for players who are making big money outside and are not ready to die for the nation," remarked the former Black Princesses coach.

"I believe in building from the inside-out and not the outside-in. When you develop the youth system and the local leagues, then you will have quality players to compete with the foreign-based players and this will raise the level of competition, commitment and performance," he explained.

Coach Sackey attributed the Black Stars' struggles in recent times to inexperience on the part of the technical team headed by Otto Addo.

"Lack of experience on the part of the technical team has also caused a lot of setbacks as we all know that we have some quality players more than our opponents but they don't seem to get the job done.

"One doesn't seem to understand what they are trying to do with the team which keeps changing all the time, and there is no control over the team, which is affecting tactical discipline and teamwork," Coach Sackey observed.

He also stressed the need to start giving home-based players a chance to prove themselves in the senior national team just as Coach Kwasi Appiah has been doing for the Sudanese.

"We should give local players the opportunity as they will not only play to instructions, but will also work hard to guarantee us better results.

"Like I said a year ago, things are going to get worse before they get better, and we are at our worst now," he said.

Coach Sackey advised the GFA president to adopt a more inclusive approach to football governance, noting that there were many experienced professionals who could help turn Ghana’s fortunes around. But unless the changes were made swiftly, Sackey warned, Ghana football would continue its alarming decline.

GHALCA chairman

A dumbfounded Mr Fianoo, with four decades of experience in football administration, wondered why the Black Stars continued to wallow in mediocrity in the face of minnows at a time they boasted of players who were playing at the top level in Europe.

Since Otto Addo took over from Chris Hughton to steady the ship following Ghana’s abysmal 2023 AFCON campaign, there have been few visible signs of improvement.

The Black Stars have continued to struggle against so-called "minnows" such as Niger, Mozambique, the Central African Republic, and Sudan, raising serious concerns about their ability to perform at the highest level.

Otto Addo’s second stint at the helm since March 15 has been marred by inconsistency, and despite occasional flashes of brilliance, the team have not found the rhythm.

Under his charge, Ghana have won two, drawn three and lost three matches in eight competitive and friendly matches.

"We have [Thomas] Partey, [Mohammed] Kudus, [Antoine] Semenyo, Jordan [Ayew], [Fatawu] Issahaku and others who are playing for their clubs in the EPL and the other leagues week in and week out. Kudus is one player who is being chased all over the world, so what is the problem?" he bemoaned.

Without mincing words, the GHALCA chairman, who worked with the various national teams and the previous GFA heads in the past, blamed the team's poor run on technical direction and the GFA leadership as a whole.

"We have to look at the technical direction and the football leadership as a whole because you cannot talk about only the Black Stars.

"Just yesterday (Monday) Germany whipped our Under-20 team 5-0. And now the league is in shambles; no sponsorship and television rights are gone, so it's about leadership.

There is something fundamentally wrong with the leadership," he said.

To buttress his point further, Mr Fianoo cited the huge turnover of Black Stars coaches under the current administration as a clear indication of poor leadership. This lack of continuity, Mr Fianoo argued, had destabilised the team, with coaches unable to build a lasting legacy or implement long-term strategies.

"Look at the turnover of coaches in the past five years. Coaches are not there in the short term; the dream of every coach is to make it to the World Cup but what do we see in our case," he asked in disappointment.

After failing to renew Kwasi Appiah's contract on assumption of office in October 2019, the GFA has so far appointed five coaches within five years, with Otto Addo making two stints in 2022 and 2024. The rest are Charles Kwablan Akonnor (607 days on the job), Milovan Rajevac (135 days) and Chris Hughton (310 days).

Mr Fianoo also questioned why Otto Addo was given the Black Stars job after failing to meet the search criteria.

"You drew criteria for selecting a coach, and the guy could not meet them; it means he is not there yet," he said about how Otto Addo was given the nod in flagrant disregard of the GFA's criteria of recruiting a top coach with five years’ experience, among others.

While emphasising the mess in the Ghana Premier League and the Division One League, he narrated a sad incident where his foreign partners who were running a Division One club abandoned the project at the end of last season due to the rampant age-cheating, bad officiating, betting and match-fixing that are bedevilling the local leagues.

Mr Fianoo said much as he agreed that football was big business, there was the need to understand governance in order to get the needed results.

"You see, we are talking about football being a business; but as it is now you need to get somebody with experience in the game to help you get results. You must understand governance issues," he stressed.

In his disappointment, the head of the clubs' welfare body confessed that the most unfortunate thing to have happened to Ghana football was the election of a GFA president by Congress.

"And why Ghana? Because they (GFA presidents) are not accountable to anybody, so they do whatever they want," Mr Fianoo pointed out.