Real Madrid Fan? Don’t Make Me Laugh (2)

My friend visited me from Ghana, a young graduate of the UST, the future of our country. One day, he proudly wore an Asante Kotoko shirt around the house. I couldn't help but exude some pride as well. So I shouted across to him

“Fabulous!!!”
He smiled back shyly and said, that he could hardly wear this shirt in the UST these days

“Why?” I asked
“Because you would be jeered at”
“Jeered at?” I asked.
“Yes, because most people these days are either Lipul (Liverpool for you) or Man U. You would be looked down upon.

Where? I thought. UST? My UST? The same UST of Aboagyewa and Katanga? The same UST where Asante Kotoko and Hearts of Oak fans used to stay up all night singing ahead of big matches?

So where has it gone wrong? I am not naïve. I understand that we live in a global village. Live European football is now more available than we could ever have dreamt of in our day. And yet it seems bizarre, that Ghanaian youth somehow seem to think, that identifying with a foreign club is some status symbol that places one ahead of ones peers.

Real Madrid fan? Don't make me laugh! For I insist, that true fans of any club come from the same city or belong to a generation of fans of the club. So indeed, Newcastle fans are invariably Geordies and Liverpool fans Scousers. These are people whose families have probably been fans for generations and who would often have been taken to the stadium for the first time by their grandfather or great grandfather. These are people who eat, drink and breathe their clubs. For them, supporting the club is a way of life rather than merely a hobby. Indeed, most of them would be happy to sell their last piece of jewellery, just to purchase a season's ticket.

And it is no different in Ghana. Asantes support Asante Kotoko, Ga folk support Hearts of Oak and Fantes support Ebusua Dwarfs. Any Asante who supports Hearts may have been born and bred in Accra. Our Northern brothers often support Kotoko only because in the early days, there were no teams in the north and Kotoko was the nearest team for them. Thus do we have generations of Northern Kotoko supporters.

If you are a Ghanaian who has watched “Lipul” a few times on TV and enjoyed their class of play, then it is only proper that your enthusiasm is tinged with some modicum of modesty. You can NEVER be a Lipul fan. You are an admirer at best. Even Hicks and Gillet who have staked their reputations and finances on the club are derided by the fans as outsiders. That should give you a fair idea of where you rank in the scheme of things.

And why should it be anything else? Ghana is a proud country with over a 100 year history in Association football, since Excelsior was formed in Cape Coast in 1903. We are the country of Baba Yara, Osei Kofi, CK Gyamfi, Sir Cecil Jones Attuquayefio, Abdul Razak, Abedi Pele and Tony Yeboah. We are the four times winner of the African Cup of Nations, two times winner of the FIFA under 17 cup, bronze medallist in the Olympics and recently World Champions in the under 20 world cup, thrashing England and Brazil along the way. In fact, we are one senior world cup win away from having a better football pedigree than England and already, I hear whispers of the possibility of that happening in South Africa.

And so we continue to dream. of a warm July evening in 2010 when amidst firework, Skipper Stephen Appiah would lift aloft the world cup while the red, gold and green and the black star danced excitedly in the southern winds. But how realistic is that? Marcello Lippi and Fabio Capello have each got about 300 top flight football players to select from. If we are to be honest, Ghana has only 10 or so players playing in top teams. Where is the depth? What will be the quality of our bench?

We need to build our local league. We need to build infrastructure at the grassroots. We need to develop our league to the extent where good players are happy to stay and play, as happens in Egypt. Then players like Stephen Appiah would not mind playing in our league in much the same way as Ronaldo is now playing in Brazil. And we cannot achieve that when our youth become second rate supporters of some foreign clubs, rather than fans of Bofoakwa Tano.

Brazilians admire English football, but they love their Flamingos and Botafogos more. Their youth are not parading false allegiance to some foreign power, in what after all, is an extension of the brainwashed mentality of old, where everything foreign is superior.

PAPA APPIAH
Development / Ghana / Africa / Modernghana.com

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