A former schoolmate at Columbia University in New York, a Sudanese-American, sent me a text soon after the Black Stars were beaten by Sudan in their AFCON qualifiers in Libya, a neutral ground. The message reads: “APPIAH FOR PRESIDENT OF SUDAN”!
Referencing the chaotic political nature in Sudan which has made it impossible for the team to play in their own country, he said the victory was “something to be happy about given the circumstances; otherwise, everything else is gloomy”.
And as if by design, other Sudanese friends bombarded me with messages of how important the victory meant for them. “Football has come to Sudan,” another said. We responded with laughing emojis, despite the brief pain I felt.
I consider the relationship with the Black Stars as an abusive one; and for years, kept a love and hate postsure toward them. But Tuesday hurt. It hurts not because they lost or anything – it has to do with avoidable actions that had brought the team and our football into a complete mess.
One of the fall-outs from the game is the competence of the coach, Otto Addo, a former international. Some believe he is not fit for the job but was appointed by the FA boss Kurt Okraku, who set aside his own criteria for getting a new coach and got the former Dortmund Youth Coach to handle the team.
But the truth is, if we are honest, the current system we have and how we operate, even if you bring Pep, Tuchel or any of the high profile coaches around the world, they won’t succeed in this job. You can’t tell me Otto Addo who works with Dortmund, arguably one of the most successful clubs in world football, doesn’t know his left and right.
When you have a system where even those with no expertise think they can call the shots just because they have transient power, the outcomes are always chaotic and with enormous ramifications to everyone.
I said everyone because the success of the Black Stars goes beyond the playing body; it boosts business! As for those who are blaming players and handing them splashes, it’s their right. But I disagree.
Yes, they could have performed better but you can’t tell me Semenyo, Iñaki, Kudus, Jordan, etc. are average players. These are boys we see entertain some of the toughest football customers, and they mostly win.
How then are they poor? We remember post Ivory Coast and the Iñaki return to his club and the aftermath? The kid does not need any other validation from anyone to cement his quality in the game.
The football economy is huge in this country, but we have failed to appropriately harnessed the talents for the collective interest of all. Today as we speak, other national teams other than the Black Stars exist only in name.
At best, they have become the toys of club owning FA officials who use the platform to market their players with the hope of getting them clubs abroad while more talented ones with no connection to the top are left to rot.
If the likes of the Essiens, Muntaris, etc. were to be playing in this era as kids, by virtue of location and lack of access to the so-called big men, they would have remained in their communities and maybe rot with their talents. People see these structures as an opportunity to exploit and make money out of it, fly expensive trips, buy big cars and be called ‘big men’ in their communities.
No sense of contributing to the collective. Ironically, when they are no longer in charge of the power they were so obsessed with and for which they no longer have, they expect the system they failed to fix to help them remain relevant and keep their business interests alive.
The world is not waiting for us, guys. If playing Comoros, a country I first got to know because of political instability in the early 1990s, will somewhat strike uncertainty in us as a country, then we have truly fallen.
As a country, our biggest brands are our footballers. It is a fact! Go to Frankfurt and Tony Yeboah is a god. Same as Leeds. Go to Marseille and Abedi is a god. Go to Munich and Sammy Kufour is a poster boy of their success. Go to Turkey and Stephen Appiah’s name will get you free shopping and coffee. Asamoah Gyan is loved in Sunderland despite a short spell with the club. Michael Essien is a cult hero at at Stamford bridge.
Which of these our bossy sporting officials can command any of their clouts? Yet we don’t even want to drag them to be part of the system. I met Tony Yeboah who said he left the game because of the wanton corruption. There are other ex-players like him. Stephen Appiah recently told a parliamentary sitting about why some of them are not in the game.
Today, after frustrating Laryea Kingston, a team in America has taken him off to help develop their players for the future. In a chaotic political environment loaded with divisiveness and personal hatred for even having an opinion contrary to what others have, football is the only space that gives us the space to come together, tease and break bread. We cannot afford to lose that aspect of our lives.
We either wake up and smell the coffee or bury our heads and rot in our misery. Our football has become like a galamsey operating machine sitting ugly in a once pristine river Ankobra and pounding for gold, while the river suffocates in dirt and poisonous chemicals.
This is not how our forebears envisaged the system for us to operate our football. Why should those of us in an era where dog kidneys are being used to even save human lives behave as is if life is all about exploitation and destruction?
Where is the common sense?
