Ghana Football Association (GFA) President Kurt Okraku has defended his decision to clear out the technical team of all its national teams as a move to breathe new life into the nation’s sport.
News broke on Friday that the GFA had elected to dissolved all coaching staff of both male and female teams.
Black Stars coach James Kwasi Appiah, home-based Black Stars trainer Maxwell Konadu, men’s U23 boss Ibrahim Tanko and senior national women’s team coach Mercy Tagoe-Quarcoo were among those affected by the move.
Okraku explained the decision to local Ghanaian radio station Joy FM saying;
“We have not been as competitive as we want to be in all our national levels. We need to find ways to be competitive, bring the love back and bring the teams back into the finals and in the end, win trophies. This is what the Council also aims to achieve that is why this was done,” .
“I believe that Ghana is one of the biggest football nations and has qualities across the board – coaches, players – personnel across the board from which reason I believe that Ghana must appear at every cup competitions be it at the youth stage – U14, U17 levels – and also at the biggest mundial.
“When we do not appear I am overly worried and I believe we have to be at every tournament.”
Ghana’s male U17 and U20 coaches, as well as women’s U17 and 20 coaches, have also been affected by the latest development.
“The other bit is that we have to be competitive to be able to win. We used to be very dominant at U17 level, we used to appear at the U20 World Cup quite regularly, U23 we have always struggled, perhaps for reasons that I don’t know.
‘But in the next four years I want us to win trophies and that will be the challenge to all the head trainers that we will be engaging in the next few days, not weeks.”
Ghanaian football has witnessed a real struggle in recent years as the Black Stars last won a major title in 1982, the Africa Cup of Nations in Libya.
They failed to make the quarter-finals of the AFCON for the first time since 2006 and where knocked out in the second round in Egypt. Ghana also failed to qualify for the 2018 FIFA World Cup.