Nii Lante and the challenges facing the sports ministry

The Ministry of Youth and Sports has welcomed yet another political head as the country starts its countdown to election 2016. Indeed, the recent reshuffle should be largely seen as part of the ruling party’s strategy to reassign and realign its men for the assignment ahead. That is the way I see it and there is nothing wrong with it, although it has increased the turnover of ministers at the Ministry.

And so, the long-time friend of the sports lovers media, Hon. Edwin Nii Lante Vanderpuye has become ‘Minister Number Eight’ for the Ministry of Youth and Sports in the last eight years. Although he might not have won any top national sports award like Abedi Pele, Azumah Nelson or Ohene Karikari, Nii Lante has been involved in many sporting activities, although he was better known as a sports commentator to most of us.

Right from his vetting at our august Parliament, the new minister left nobody in doubt that he was well cut out for his new challenge. And he revealed himself more during his recent meeting with the Sports Writers Association of Ghana (SWAG). In the end, he was able to paint a clear picture of the state of his ministry.

It is refreshing that as a nation, we have moved away from a policy of political appointments to the leadership of sports associations, particularly the Ghana Football Association (GFA). As a nation we have come to accept the fact that the GFA is primarily owned by its legal members, that is the clubs and other affiliated bodies like the Referees Association of Ghana. Indeed, world football abhors politics as we know it. Thus any individual or group of persons who desire to get into football administration should understand that they can only get involved as representatives of football clubs or must belong to any of the affiliated organs.

Our new minister, in his media meeting, bemoaned the paucity of resource allocation to his ministry and wondered how they could survive in the face of the meagre allocation. But we have to attack the problem at its roots. It is unfortunate that in this country we have developed an appetite for creation without thinking about sustenance. We have created many schools without enough thought about where teachers and other resources would come from. We have admitted new students and pupils with little or no thought about where they would sit or sleep. And so many schools and their classes are overcrowded with students in the classrooms and dormitories. The few teachers become overburdened and underpaid.

In sports, we have accepted and tolerated many sports disciplines without any thought of how to fund and grow them. We end up spending a chunk of budgetary allocation for sports on salaries and various forms of compensations with little left for sports development. In plain words, we are always chewing more than we can swallow.

Football, for example, is very expensive to run. Have we paused to think about how much is spent in running the Premier League and the Division One League?

Nobody needs to be told the enormous benefits that the nation derives from football, especially when the national teams are doing well. In truth, we cannot equate our football to any other sports discipline. We sometimes complain about the exodus of players from Ghana to other countries. Without resorting to any scientific data, our footballers outside the country bring in a lot of hard foreign currency.

It was very pleasing that our new Sports Minister indicated that he and the GFA would be engaging our Black Stars players to chart a way forward on bonuses and appearance fees. This engagement is much welcomed. If well executed, our gallant players, especially those who ply their trade overseas could be contributing enormously to football development back home. If we go by what Black Stars captain, Asamoah Gyan, single-handedly did for our female national team, we should encourage the minister to carry out his new initiative. Our national team players are adults and mature people. We should, therefore, desist from calling them names and throwing vile criticisms at them.

There is no need to envy and hate the GFA members and the players. It took a lot of investment and hard work to bring our Black Stars team to this level of importance and image. The GFA Secretariat itself has undergone a lot of transformation from the days it was operating from the long room under the staircases at the Accra Sports Stadium to its present modern edifice at Ridge in Accra. And naturally, as our football develops and grows, the people working within it will also naturally develop and prosper.

In my last match as an active referee, my allowance was 18,000(old Ghana Cedis). Today, my son who is in a similar match, takes not less than GHc500.

Football is improving and growing and people will grow with it. There appears to be too much envy and hatred for the GFA. May this not be extended to our national teams.

My point is, whether the new minister likes it or not, we cannot rate our football on the same level as the other disciplines. At least, the GFA is able to pre-finance many Black Stars programmes and in some cases, they are not reimbursed.

We welcome the honourable Nii Lante into his ministry. He is affable and friendly and he should carry this into his new job. Like the president of SWAG promised, “We shall all do our best to help him, because he is one of our kind. If he fails, we shall all be deemed to have failed.”

May he keep his ministry for long, even into next year, that is, if and when his party wins the November 7, 2016 elections.