Former President John Dramani Mahama has hinted of sweeping reforms of Ghana football in collaboration with the Ghana Football Association (GFA) to ensure that the Black Stars rise again.
Speaking during his Building Ghana Tour of the Upper East Region over the weekend, the former President said he will ensure, for instance, that the GFA organises a colts football league in order to groom talents from the grassroots for the Black Stars.
Mr Mahama made this known in connection with the poor showing of the senior national men’s soccer team at the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON).
Ghana exited the group stage without a win, drawing with Mozambique and Egypt in Group B and losing to Cape Verde in the very first match in Abidjan.
“We just came from the Africa Cup of Nations and we performed abysmally, disastrously and we performed abysmally because we are not growing our football,” he told supporters at Zebilla.
“Before, we used to have the colts and every district used to organise its colts league and they pick the promising players from there,” he said, mentioning the academicals as well.
He explained that schools played against each other with more talents groomed as a result.
“Unfortunately, all that has collapsed and so we are going to work on the Football Association to start to catch them young, when they are young, so that we can train them and give them to local teams.
“They will play and get experience before if they want to travel abroad they can travel but we will build a new Black Stars based on home-grown players, domestic players who have trained together for a long time and work as a team and then we will bring the foreign ones to come and blend with them.
“If you bring only foreign players, they don’t play together, they play in their individual teams and then when it’s time for competitions you bring them together and come and tell them to play, it won’t work.”
He insisted that the core of the Black Stars should be domestic players who will be camped for a long period.
“So, we are going to overhaul Ghana football in collaboration with the Ghana Football Association.”
Content by: Kwame Amoh
