Ministry to adhere to age limit

The basic cause of the poor performance and failure of the Black Satellites to qualify for the World Youth Soccer Tournament was because the Ghana Football Association decided to use the correct age in the selection of players for all National Youth teams.

The current policy of the Ministry of Youth and Sports is to strictly adhere to the age limit so as to inculcate social values like honesty, fair-play, respect for rules and regulations that are essential ingredients needed for the country’s growth and development.

Mr Edward Osei-Kwaku, the Minister made these remarks to Parliament last Friday when Mr. Joseph Tsatsu Agbenu, NDC-Afram Plains South asked what the causes for the recent failure of the Black Satellites to qualify for the World Youth Soccer Tournament in Burkina Faso were.

The Minister said the current policy of the GFA was to select most of the players of the national youth teams from the lower league divisions in line with the five-year football development programme that is aimed at a systematic team building.

Mr Osei-Kwaku said most of the players who formed the core of the Black Satellites of 2002/2003 were initially picked from the lower league divisions.

He said unfortunately, the selection exercise coincided with the period that there was no competitive match in those divisions because of a court action instituted by Tudu Mighty Jets against the GFA and as such player selection was based on friendly and not competitive matches.

In the course of their training, it became evident that some of the players were not the type of material needed and they had to be dropped for new ones to be invited and as a result of this, the final squad selected for the tournament lacked the necessary cohesion and co-ordination for such a high profile competition.