VIDEO: Cheddar urges Ghanaians to spend time productively, not watching football  

Independent presidential candidate Nana Kwame Bediako, popularly known as "Cheddar," has called on Ghanaians to reconsider how they spend their time, particularly on watching football, as the nation approaches the December 7 elections.

Speaking on GTV’s Presidential Encounters programme, Mr Bediako urged citizens to evaluate the time spent watching football and its impact on their productivity.  

“I think that first of all, if you spend two hours watching football almost every two days in a year, you would have spent 1,000 hours of your time, or 500 hours of your time, watching football that somebody is getting paid $500,000 a week, but you watch them for free and pay your hours into it,” he stated.  

He described the time spent watching football as a poor investment of a person’s most valuable asset—their time. “I don’t think that’s a good investment, because your time is your most important asset, but you have to use it sensibly,” he said.  

Cheddar's vision for sports development  

Instead of merely watching football, Mr Bediako proposed integrating sports into Ghana’s educational system as a way of transforming the industry and creating opportunities.  

“What I would do for sports, which I think we are lacking, that will stop people from just watching and not being a part of the industry, is to start to infuse sports right into our educational system by partnering with people who are specialised in that,” he said.  

Mr. Bediako lamented the lack of proper facilities and training systems for young athletes in Ghana. “They give us PE, and then we’re playing football on the ground where there’s stone, they haven’t even created the astroturf, they don’t have the drinks, the things you need to build these people.”  

Tackling football’s export model  

He was also critical of Ghana’s reliance on external football academies, describing it as a modern form of exploitation. “Somebody will come and form an academy and call it ‘Right to Dream,’ and when you have your right to dream now, you have to go through someone’s country in Holland before they sell you. So you’re just like a polished slave,” he remarked.  

To counter this, Mr Bediako proposed establishing local academies that integrate sports training with education. “I would rather have a combined academy with a school together so you can breed them properly. And after that, we can go and buy some Chelsea and Manchester, just like the Arabs are doing, just to make our country stronger,” he added.  

Mr Bediako’s radical ideas have become a hallmark of his campaign, as he seeks to challenge conventional perspectives and attract voters with a vision for transformative leadership in Ghana.

Watch the video below;

"I don't think spending 2 hours watching football almost every 2 days in year, is a good investment" - Nana Kwame Bediako

Explanation below 👇🏾#GhanaWins#Election2024#PresidentialEncounters pic.twitter.com/QdiLcn5XKc

— GTV Ghana (@GTV_Ghana) December 3, 2024