GFA In Danger Of Judgment Debt Over Replacement Of Kwasi Appiah

The Ghana football association GFA is in danger of vomiting $1m (a million dollar in judgment debt) in respect of removal of Kwasi Appiah as head coach of the Black Stars football team. This amount is not expected to be paid from the consolidated fund but from the Ghana football association.

The question to pose is, can the GFA afford to throw out the amount in question? Mr. Kwasi Apppiah president of the Ghana Football Association (GFA) is a lawyer who knows that Kwasi Appiah is on contract as Black Stars trainer for two years with $30,000 or more dollars as his monthly payment for two years. I do not think that Kwasi Appiah is a simpleton who would accept $100,000 dollars as a handshake package for him. With regard to the procedure employed to sack Kwasi Appiah I dare say that it is not fair.

If it is because he has refused to heed to advice to work with a technical adviser, it is not a good reason for dismissing him. We are told that the GFA has refused to accept his choice of technical advisers including Mr. Ben Cofie experienced coach and former chairman of the GFA. The entire Ghanaian football fans are divided over the dismissal of Mr. Kwasi Appiah.

While some people support his dismissal for performing abysmally in Brazil during the last world cup tournaments, others feel the move employed by the Ghana Football Association was wrong. Kwasi Appiah as former captain of the Black Stars had to bid his time as an assistant coach of Milovan Rajevac for a long time before becoming a head coach of the Black Stars. He is the first Ghanaian Coach to qualify Ghana's Black Stars to the world cup finals after two foreign coaches did so in 2006 and 2010 in Germany and South Africa respectively. If he is considered to be no longer fit for the position of head coach, we must look round to appoint a Ghanaian to replace him. Better still he could be maintained and be made to appoint some good old footballers turned Coaches like Mohammed polo, Sunday Ibrahim, Joe Addo and Odartey Lamptey just to mention a few , to assist him as done in Brazil and other nations of the world .

The time has come for us to be self reliant. We must adhere to domestication and prove capable of managing our own affairs courtesy Mr. Dan Lartey and Dr Kwame Nkrumah of blessed memory respectively. We can learn from our mistakes to be able to move on. Why do we have obsession for everything foreign? If for nothing this move would lead to us throwing hard cash to foreigners leading to lowering of our economy and our prestige.

We are told the GFA is still eager to go for a foreign coach like. The person being considered is Milovan Rajevac former black stars coach. I wish to recount what I wrote when we heard about plans to re appoint Milo as head coach for the Black Stars as the team qualified to feature in the world cup matches in Brazil. ……………………………………….

What is wrong with Ghanaian Football leadership? Why are they not content with what we have? Who are behind the move to bring back the Serbian coach Milovan Rajevac ……. Ghana, after attaining independence 57 years ago Ghana is old enough to hold its own in sports development especially soccer. I support all those such as Kwesi Pratt managing editor of the insight newspaper who have kicked against the move to recall Milovan Rajevac. ………... The reason is that we are ripe enough to manage our affairs in many areas such as soccer. I therefore agree perfectly with Mr. Kwasi Pratt when he said the following “We all advocated for a local coach to lead the Black Stars because we were fed-up with the foreign ones, and then you come again and tell us this…What is wrong with the GFA; how can they think of bringing back this coach. What did he do with the Black Stars when he was leading them? Sometimes I just don't understand some of these officials. It is so annoying...meanwhile, if he returns, his pay is even likely to exceed that of Kwesi Appiah,” he said.

If we need people to assist Kwasi Appiah we can lay our hands on capable hands in abundance to offer help. We have men like Sunday Ibrahim, Joe Addo, Abedi Pele, Abukari Damba to mention but a few to help the Ghanaian coach. Have we studied the man Rajevac very well? I don't think so. After being paid so much by the nation for his coaching assignment he proved ungrateful to Ghanaians. During a match between his nation Serbia and Ghana he rebuffed Kwasi Appiah when he approached to embrace him. His body language when his home team lost a match against the Black Stars was not good. Let's not forget his allegation on our footballers' involvement in juju. As a Serbian and therefore non Ghanaian he cannot be more loyal to our leadership than his nation. It is Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah first president of Ghana who said that we are capable of managing our own affairs. Let us hold on to this by performing duties ourselves especially in areas that we have the expertise and correct ourselves as we move along. This is because under our first director of sports late Ohene Djan Ghana proved equal to the task by using local coached like C.K Gyamfi and other to win laurels for Ghana. Since he learnt the trade under foreign coaches Kwasi Appiah is considered as a man on a learning curve. Many people feel that he has done enough to go on as national coach. His dismissal is therefore considered as unfortunate.

We said goodbye to Milovan Rajevac after he handled the Black Stars football team to compete in the World Cup tournaments in 2010. After transferring his knowledge to our coaches He must remain outside Ghana soccer affairs for good. Let us rely on our own home grown expertise to make good self reliance and domestication slogans.

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
EANFOWORLD FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
ALHAJI A ABDULAI [email protected] /[email protected] 233 20 8844791 /