Open letter to President John Dramani Mahama

I hope and trust that all is well with you. I hope and pray that with the challenges you are facing as our President, the Good Lord will give you the wisdom to face them squarely, and as you courageously put it in your State of the Nation address, you would fix them.

This open letter is not about the power crisis, but about our sports development in Ghana.

Your Excellency, you stated quite clearly that it was time the Ghana Football Association did its best to make the local game more attractive.

I refer of course to association football.

I would like to humbly point out that whilst the GFA supervises football in this country, the fact remains that without the support of the National Sports Authority, the Ministry of Youth and Sports and government itself, interest in the local game will still dwindle.

Your Excellency, you would recall that years ago, there were several playing fields all around the country and because of that, colts football was flourishing.

This ensured a steady conveyer belt of talent for Ghana’s top flight and made the league very exciting back then.

Virtually every club had star attractions and as such, match centres were always patronized during games.

Unfortunately, most of these playing fields, particularly in the southern part of this country, have been encroached upon and now, many of these fields no longer exist.

Indeed, Your Excellency, Tamale is probably the one city in Ghana with a lot of playing fields. In short, there is the need for government to at least help in providing facilities to fuel interest in the local game.

Your Excellency, I was happy to learn that the Cape Coast Stadium project would be completed this year, but as part of a medium to long term project for sports development, it will be great if government could set aside some land in each of the ten regions so that more playing fields can be made available to develop more untapped talent.

So, Mr. President, we still have a long way to go to recapture the excitement in our local game.

You mentioned the swimmers in your address, Your Excellency, but the swimmers use a private facility for their training and they pay for it as well. I refer to the facility at Tesano in Accra.

May I humbly submit, Your Excellency, that the time has come for government to explore ways of providing one or two standard swimming pools, so that more talents can be discovered.

For you to mention them means that they have done well, albeit under very difficult conditions and so they need all the help they can get so that Ghana continues to win the medals you referred to.

Your Excellency, there seems to be an uneven bias when it comes to the Black Stars. Government invests so much in the Black Stars ahead of tournaments.

There is nothing wrong with that, but there is everything wrong in denying other disciplines what they need.

For instance, the Ghana Amputee National team was denied assistance by the Ministry of Youth and Sports and ultimately, that denied the team the chance to take part in the Amputee World Cup in Mexico because the team arrived late.

Now, information has it that Ghana is set to be suspended internationally because of the Association’s inability to pay an amount in the region of $500 or so as affiliation fees.

Your Excellency, it is apparently clear that whilst government invests so much in the Black Stars, little or nothing is done to help other sporting disciplines that can also bring the nation honour.

Your Excellency, with respect that is not good enough!

Take boxing, which has given Ghana many World champions down the years.

Azumah Nelson is now a Boxing Hall of Famer and he remains one of the World’s greatest ever boxers.

By now, government should have initiated plans of building at least one ultra modern boxing gym so that more boxing talents could be identified and groomed.

The facilities available are not good enough and there is an apparent lack of funding to ensure that boxing coaches are properly trained to groom future talents in the sport.

Your Excellency, this is something I humbly submit that you look at, so that a plan in place to resuscitate boxing can start rolling.

There are so many disciplines that need your help and attention and this is why the Sports Bill has to be passed into law to ensure the setting up of a Sports Fund that will aid many sporting disciplines.

Until then, since there seems to be so much resource available to the Black Stars, I would humbly ask, Your Excellency, that attention is paid to other sporting disciplines as well, in terms of increased government support.

I thank you sir for having the patience to read this from me and I wish you well

Yours faithfully

Christopher Opoku