Baba Yara is Ghana’s greatest player – Ibrahim Sunday

Ghana and Asante Kotoko legend Ibrahim Sunday has exclusively told footballmadeinghana.com that Osman ‘Baba Yara’ Seidu is Ghana’s greatest ever footballer.

According to Sunday, despite the existence of exciting football talents during his time, Baba Yara’s trumped every one’s else and his footballing genius had no equal.

Despite having a short lived career, almost every football connoisseur who atched him play has sang volumes of praises on the ‘King of Wingers’.

Speaking to FootballMadeinGhana’s Tales from the Past Podcast, Ibrahim Sunday mentioned Baba Yara’s football talents as unparalleled and stated that his dominance will have equaled that of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo in this era.

“If I talk about Baba Yara, you don’t know Baba Yara. And at that time, he was the greatest player.

Fantastic!!! We had other players who were also great but Baba Yara was special”, he said.

“Look, at that time the President of France, he made a remark that in Ghana we don’t know anything, all what we know is Baba Yara, Baba Yara.

“You see, that means even at that time when we didn’t have media like today, his name was in France. Not even in France alone, other places (as well).

“Meanwhile there was no media, unlike today. If it were today, maybe we’ll compare him with (Lionel) Messi and (Cristiano) Ronaldo”, Sunday pointed out.

ABOUT BABA YARA

Baba Yara (real name Osman Seidu) was born on the 12th of October, 1936 in Kumasi, Ashanti Region.

Baba Yara was popularly called King of Wingers and was twice voted as Ghana’s Footballer of the year.

Yara’s rise to fame was unprecedented; however, his football career was abruptly brought to an end at the age of 26 as a result of a car accident.

Seidu started out as a horse jockey player as a youngster at the Accra Turf Club between 1950 and 1955.

Asante Kotoko signed him in 1955, and after a few years, became the greatest footballer of his generation.

He made his debut as a member of the Black Stars in 1955 in a match that saw Ghana put 7 past Nigeria at the Accra Sports Stadium.

Baba Yara scored 2 and assisted 4 of the goals. He was also a proud member of the 1961 Black Stars and won 51 caps for Black Stars, with 49 goals which is a lot of goals for a winger and was thus nicknamed ‘King of Wingers’.

Yara played active football from 1955-1963; he sustained a spinal injury in a motor accident at Kpeve in the Volta region on March 4, 1963.

His team, Real Republicans were returning to Accra after a league match against Volta Heroes at Kpandu when the accident happened. Yara’s career was cut short tragically in his prime at the age of just 26.

He was flown to Stoke Mandeville Hospital in the United Kingdom for treatment for a period of 3 months, but the young soccer hero only returned in a wheel chair.

For 6 years, Baba Yara was bedridden, and eventually died after a very quiet life in a wheelchair. Yara died at the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital on 5th May, 1969 at a tender age of 33.