Former Ghanaian international Sammy Kuffour says the difference between the current Black Stars and their generation is sound management.
Kuffour who won his first cap as a 17-year-old in a game against Sierra Leone back in 1993 played alongside some of Ghana’s finest including Abedi Pele, C.K Akunnor, Tony Yeboah, Augustine Arhinful, Mohammed Gargo and Kwame Ayew but they never achieved any significant success for Ghana.
The former Bayern Munich player encountered a number of problems with handlers of the national team during his active days including a walk out of the team’s camp at the Africa Cup of nations in Mali in 2002.
Sammy “Tuga” as affectionately called, got capped 59 times for Ghana but ended his international career without a silver ware.
Kuffuor told XYZ Sports in an interview that their inability to win laurels for Ghana boils down to poor management at the time.
“When you compare, in terms of organization this time is far better than our time,” Kuffuor told XYZ Sports.
“Honestly speaking we had a lot of quality which I believe is far better than the current players,” he added.
“Our problems were just too many”.
“Sometimes when you finish a game as a Black Stars player you needed to go and wait at the stadium and wait for long hours before you are paid your bonus”.
“During our time sometimes you need to travel from your base with your personal money and the refund becomes difficult”.
“Bonuses were always not paid on time, there was no proper travelling arrangement, poor organization, and no basic planning and that ended up affecting our performance on the pitch”
“So those are some of the things that affected our output on the field of play”.
“Today everything has changed; the players are rewarded for their effort on time, travelling arrangements are properly done, they are well kitted and that is the difference between our time and the current generation”.
Sammy Kuffuor concluded, “We would have love to take Ghana far and win trophies for the nation but under those conditions it was always difficult to be successful with that sort of treatment”
Osei Kuffuor is regarded as one of Ghana's all time successful footballers. He played for Livorno AS Roma and Dutch side Ajax before he finally retired from football in 2009.
