Bad seeds planted in Black Starlets leave little hope for Ghana’s future

GHANAsoccernet.com columnist Yaw Adjei-Mintah reckons bad seeds have been planted in the silver-winning Ghana U-17 team, leaving little hope for the country's future.

While many see a bright future ahead, doom awaits us

For a country fearful of what the next generation represents, it is shocking how the present generation is vigorously ensuring that fear turns into reality.

The next generation is constantly bombarded with gory images and chaotic scenes happening on a daily basis at the center of the earth. While inhumane acts such as the killing of Captain Mahama is the latest to hit the nation, what lies in the future of this beautiful country is grim.

Before news of the horrific incident on the Army Officer, Ghana’s National Under 17 Male Football Team (Black Starlets) was the talk of town following a blistering start in the continental Championship. After sweeping Cameroon and Gabon in a ruthless manner, the team failed to score in regulation time in the next three games ultimately missing out on a third African title.

The just ended competition has been by far Ghana’s best since clinching the title in 1999 but seeing what happened before and after the team arrived, it is difficult to envisage Ghana in a good situation ten years later with this team.

Talent wise, very little can be held against the young studs who showed how good they are and more importantly, how good they can be with right mentoring. However, the team’s mentoring up to this stage has been anything but right.

The most inglorious moment in Ghana’s football history came during the 2014 World Cup in Brazil where players of the Senior National Team- Black Stars- openly refused to play a crucial World Cup decider against Portugal if they were not paid monies owed them.

Prior to that, bonuses for the team had been a subject of consternation for many a Ghanaian whose trinket of taxes goes into paying $10,000 to each player per national team game. Per the directives of new Sports Minister Isaac Asiamah, the new amount will be half of the old one.

In the aftermath of the U-17 Championship, each Black Starlets player will pocket $4000; a sum almost half of the previous amount dished out to their senior colleagues.

The Black Stars have been slammed for being unpatriotic in demanding for huge sums of money but can anyone blame them when players yet to accomplish any major mark in the game are paid almost half of what cup winners earn? Starlets de-facto cheerleader, Deputy Sports Minister Pius Hadzide’s comments doesn’t help matters either.

Speaking to the boys after touching down with the team from Gabon, the Deputy Sports Minister stated making the World Cup gives the Starlets its biggest opportunity to “market” themselves and “market” the country.

Ideally, marketing the country should be the first point of call and not the other way round as the Minister stated. Also his generous act of giving $1000 to the team for “refreshment” after securing a place in the final over Niger is wrong no matter how one looks at it.

Giving players, young as they are, so much money is a bad start as countries like England has suffered and is still suffering from because such players develop bad work ethics yet demand more because they feel entitled.

Aside badly advised financial incentives, the attitude of football administrators and some government officials is bad for the overall development of the players. Lavishing a team that placed second in a tournament with endless praise goes a long way in shaping the psyche of players going forward.

Rather than have players grow up to be winners and nothing else, here they are being praised for coming up short in a tournament they failed to score in the last three games.

Little wonder their senior colleagues get $20,000 each for a World Cup quarterfinal appearance. The Black Starlets performance is the best from the nation since 1999 and deserves commendation for what they have done.

However, overloading the praise boat is destined to capsize the development of Ghana’s future Black Stars. America is the greatest country in the world because it lives and dies by this rule.

As such, anything but an NBA Championship, Baseball World Series title, an NFL Vince Lombardi trophy, the NHL’s Stanley Cup or Major League Soccer Cup, will do for its athletes.

The main purpose behind juvenile competition is to identify and develop talents but it creates the best environment to imbibe good qualities such as patriotism, and winning in such talents.