Abuja 2003: Ghanaian Press Bashes COJA

The Ghanaian media were awash at the weekend with the poor arrangement put in place for participating countries by COJA as reports reached Accra from the Calabar centre where their football team, the Black Meteors were playing.

The radio stations were informed by their men on ground in Calabar that the players were made to go to training sessions in taxis as COJA did not make provision for vehicles to move the teams around and this they argued may affect the Black Meteors' chances of progressing in the competition.

The Ghanaian team eventually ended their first match against Algeria in a 1-1 draw but one of the analysts would not want to blame the difficulty of the team's movement for the draw. He argued that the football authorities in Ghana should have made contingency plans to transport the team in the failure of the host nation providing for them.

COJA also received hard knocks from the Daily Graphic of Ghana with its reporter on ground for the Games stressing that the long speeches delivered by top shots of government and the committee took the shine off the opening ceremony which was delayed for over two hours thus making some countries' athletes stay out of the march past.

The newspapers however commended the country for the cultural displays put up by the various groups that performed at the opening ceremony which portrayed the rich African culture as well as the speech of President Olusegun Obasanjo which urged the participants to use the opportunity of the Games to forge greater African brotherhood