Ghana's fading hopes of re-joining the elite of African soccer (forget about our day-dream of joining the elite of the world) were finally laid to rest - not by a result on the field of play but by the brutal reality of boardroom wrangling and indecision over the choice of a competent technical head to run the game at the senior level.
Last week's dismissal of coach Cecil Jones Attuquayefio is a classical manifestation of our soccer administrators' lack of judgement and their inability to address the fundamental problems confronting the game.
Jones Attuquayefio's time as manager of the Black Stars has been marked by his truthfulness in a climate of inadequate official support, and after his outspoken criticism of the GFA at the end of the home draw with Nigeria, the local coach might have conceded defeat on a much wider scale than just the surrender of another two points.
The title race is not usually over until the chasing teams utter the dread phrase: "we're not giving up until it is mathematically impossible." That was Coach Attuquayefio's words after his team had picked its first point under his stewardship in their match against Nigeria.
But one point from three matches in a world cup qualifying series is as much statistical evidence as the Ghanaian coach needs to know that this is not going to be the Black Stars' year of making their maiden trip to the world stage.
However, it will be a high level of hypocrisy for anyone to hold Jones solely responsible for all the mess we find ourselves in with regard to Ghana's persistent inability to qualify for the World Cup.
Ask anyone in France's football fraternity why the national team has sprung so dramatically from also-runs to World Champions in six years, and the answer is clear and unanimous. It lies, they say philosophically, in unity of purpose and solidarity.
France, who failed to qualify for the 1994 World Cup but won it 1998, curiously sit proudly on top of the pile largely because of the astounding success of a scouting, nurturing and coaching system that has taken a fortune to introduce over the last decade.
Behind that, however, is to be found a feeling that if les Bleus are healthy, then football in France is healthy, a feeling of success at all costs.
Here in Ghana, priorities would appear to be different. Even on the day the GFA took a step in the right direction by appointing a genuine coach to the game's most important position after appropriate selection procedures, further evidence started emerging that this is a country and sport divided by personal ambition.
Neutrals found it genuinely difficult to get caught up in the air of crisis that engulfed Ghana soccer when, for political expediency, some people in powerful positions started calling for the head of Jones' predecessor, Italian coach Guissepe Dossena. The bankruptcy in the decision to fire Dossena formed the genesis of the problems that Jones inherited.
Ghana soccer has been battered left, right and centre. The game has been ran over the years by hangers-on and journeymen whose interest in the sport is nothing more than personal financial interest that accrue to them individually. The net result is the reckless state of affairs that have become the benchmark of the game in the country.
While the large army of Ghanaian football fans boo their team, berate the scores of managers who have had a stint with the Black Stars and complain that the under-achievers should be in their "rightful" place in world soccer, the rest of us really wonder how they can justify such lofty expectations.
To the casual observer, trying to remember the last time Ghana made any kind of sustained challenge for any continental trophy, or even finished in the top level in back-to-back continental tournaments is a great task; and the "soccer nation" tag usually accorded to Ghana seems merely a historical anomaly.
Cecil Jones Attuquayefio certainly chose a strange time to accept to manage the Black Stars. Jones knew when he agreed to pick up the carnage left behind by years of mismanagement that, as a local coach, his presence at the head of the senior national team would not please everybody.
He made the game look easy and was known as the stroller, earning a "knighthood" with a Sir being added to his name. But Jones Attuquayefio's nickname from his playing days could scarcely be applied to his role as Black Stars manger.
Even after a hard earned goalless draw against Nigeria, Coach Attuquayefio accepted that certain factions of the FA's support would inevitably deride the performance of the Stars as another betrayal of Ghana's perceived standing as supreme overlords in the sub-region.
The GFA has a convenient alibi for Jones' dismissal in pointing to the coach's divided attention. The explanation that the decision to dispense with Jones' services as head coach of the Black Stars was based on the poor results recorded under his reign and his inability to devote his time fully to the Black Stars are matters of fact.
The Black Stars have picked just one out of a maximum nine points in the World Cup qualifiers which virtually ends Ghana's dream for the 2002 summit games in Korea/Japan, even though Attuquayefio took over the team at the time Ghana had taken a pole position under coach Dossena.
Again, it is obvious that the coach's conflict of interest as technical head of African Super Champions, Accra Hearts of Oak, was preventing him from devoting his full attention to the Stars.
The problem, however, stems from the fact that the GFA has exhibited over the years that they lack foresight in steering the affairs of the game in this country. On several occasions, men of goodwill have advocated for comprehensive appraisal of potential coaches before engaging them to handle the senior national team.
These have always fallen on deaf ears, and the sport has had to resign its fate in the hands of tin gods to dictate who should be appointed to be coaches.
Once again Ghana soccer has been thrown into a crisis situation, and the sport has to endure with the cycle of looking for another coach to start from the scratch. Do we ever learn a lesson?
