So the news is finally out. Should Ghana fail to defeat Togo on Wednesday, Black Stars head coach Kwesi Appiah would be fired and the Ghana Football Association would pay compensation to the ex-Ghana skipper.
So after weeks of dithering when the whole world and his wife now knows that Appiah is out of his depth in handling the Black Stars, the whole drama will finally come to an end this week.
The curious case of Kwesi Appiah
You see, I am writing this article with a bit of pain because (and I am not ashamed to say so) I had a lot of faith in Kwesi Appiah.
In fact, even after the 2013 African Nations Cup tournament, despite the tactical mistakes he made, I was one of the few that called for him to continue and indeed, after the 6-1 win over Egypt, I was confident that he could cut it at the World Cup.
Sadly, I was proved wrong and so, as a matter of principle, I have began saying that he is not the man to take us forward and finally, the GFA has seen that as well.
I guess, in being fair, we can make allowances for the GFA because they tied Appiah down to a new contract before the World Cup because they feared that a good performance by the team could see them lose his services to another country.
That hasn’t happened and for the moment, it is a marriage of inconvenience between Appiah and the GFA. If they fire him, he would be entitled to anything upwards of $110,000 in compensation. If he resigns too, he has to pay the GFA some compensation upwards of almost $100,000.
The reason why I call it a marriage of inconvenience is that from the start, the GFA has not really had any confidence in Appiah’s ability to deliver and finally the chickens have come home to roost.
Like I said, even though I still retain a lot of liking and respect for Kwesi Appiah as a person, I think it’s time for him to go and in my candid opinion, the Togo game should not even have been used as a codicil.
He should have been cut loose after the World Cup but a lack of testicular fortitude on the part of the GFA was masked by a thin lining of bravado exhibited on July 2 2014 at a press conference at the Alisa Hotel in Accra.
The GFA expressed total confidence in Kwesi Appiah and announced that he had signed a new contract before the World Cup but we should have known even then that it was little more than a smokescreen.
This brings me to the way forward. Replacing Appiah with another coach for me is only the start of the process and even though Milovan Rajevac will divide opinion because he hasn’t achieved anything of note since leaving Ghana four years ago, I would recommend that he is hired on a short term contract with the task of seeing Ghana through the qualifiers for the 2015 African Nations Cup tournament and should Ghana qualify, then he would be given a longer contract if he reaches at least the semifinal with the team. That would be a positive way forward.
Revamping the technical bench
I am going to have to step on some toes here but I am only making critical analysis here and for me, changes have to be made to the technical team make up.
In my opinion, Maxwell Konadu should be kept as assistant coach to whoever is appointed; Milovan Rajevac or someone else. Konadu is a fine tactical reader of the game and I believe that he was under-utilized under Kwesi Appiah.
Nonetherless he has learnt a lot and he might probably be the only member of the existing technical team I would retain, if it was up to me. Personally, even though Sabahn Quaye remains a good friend of mine, I believe he is out of his depth as Black Stars manager and that might explain why the players’ level of indiscipline increased with time.
A tough, principled ex-Black Stars player would be ideal because Opoku Afriyie was excellent in that role. I also think it is time for Nassamu Yakubu’s role to be reviewed. Goalkeeping is now an Achilles’ heel in the team and has been since the exit of Richard Kingson.
For Kwesi Appiah to comment, via allsports.com.gh that ‘I wish we can have ten good goalkeepers that can bring a lot of competition. We have very good goalkeepers coming up, we still keeping an eye on everyone. As for the next game I don’t even know who will be the goalkeeper, only God knows,’ is a serious indictment on Nassamu’s capabilities and without prejudice, I believe he has to be replaced.
Finally, why are we now being told that the team psychologist Professor Mintah was away in Casablanca monitoring the Guinea v Togo clash when his input was badly needed for the Uganda game? It was clear that the Black Stars team wasn’t properly psyched up for the game but Professor Mintah was absent. Is he now the new scout for the team?
I am sorry, but in my view, his position will also have to come under review? What happened to all the recommendations and reports sent in by the former team psychologist, Dr. Patrick Ofori? For me, that is the revamp we need.
Black Stars management committee
This is a committee that needs to be dissolved with immediate effect. I was interviewing GFA Emergency Committee member George Afriyie on GTV’s Sunday Night Live a few days ago and when my co-host Karl Tufuoh asked him what the role of the Black Stars Management Committee was, he responded by saying that the Committee was responsible for ensuring that the players had good hotels to stay in, players were well transported to training and match venues, as well as overseeing the welfare of the team.
If Afriyie’s explanations are to be taken at face value, then I do not see why any Black Stars Management Committee member should be entitled to any winning bonus.
Rather some per diem and some allowances should be given to them. Already, revelations from the ongoing Commission of Enquiry would suggest that some, if not all the members of the Committee shared an amount of $82,500.
This is the culmination of a wrong practice that has gone on for so long and it is time for it to stop! There shouldn’t be any more Black Stars Management Committees, but rather there should be an administrative team with every member functional, such as welfare, finance, communications and general management, with the head coach as the main boss.
That should be the structure going forward. Unfortunately, because Kwesi Nyantakyi, who is GFA president doubles as the chairman of the Black Stars Committee, it becomes almost impossible to hold the committee to account.
I am now issuing a challenge to Nyantakyi to show enough testicular fortitude to dissolve the committee, because it has outlived its usefulness and now exists as a vehicle for money making, and I say this without equivocation.
Communications and Public Relations
It is my considered view that the Communications wing of the GFA has fallen short of the required mark when it comes to the Black Stars. It is not always about reacting to news reports that might be deemed to either be false or otherwise by the GFA.
It is geared towards making the GFA and in this case the Black Stars look good. For me, a lot of work needs to be done in adequately preparing the players for press conferences and interviews because whether we like it or not, certain questions would be asked that might not be appreciated by the players and hierarchy alike.
For instance the response from Asamoah Gyan and Andre Ayew to certain questions put to them before the Uganda game only served to alienate themselves from the fans. It is all to do with the sudden perception after the World Cup that the players are nothing more than a bunch of money grabbing mercenaries who care nothing about the pride of wearing the national shirt.
That is all it is; a perception, but unfortunately, whatever any player says would either clear the air and let everyone see that the perception is not fact, or it would rather turn the perception into fact.
As it is now, the comments passed rather infuriated the fans and I was witness to pure apathy during the game itself and I am not sure I have ever seen that happen in my 16 years as a journalist. Even now (at the time of writing this piece many want Ghana to lose against Togo), the apathy and rage from the fans still remain and as my colleague and friend Fiifi Anaman aptly put it, The Black Stars have stabbed the fans in the heart and that is why there is so much indifference now.
Ibrahim Saanie Daara has a lot of work to do in ensuring that the Black Stars redeems its former image and that will involve working on the players in terms of anticipated questions and composure during interviews.
It is vitally important, especially now. I also think that the GFA will do well to appoint a Public Relations expert to assist Daara, who was and still is a fine journalist but clearly needs help in the PR department.
Fans disconnect – A serious challenge
Many people do not realize it, but there is an almost spiritual implication when an entire nation rallies behind its national team. So for the Black Stars to suddenly lose support from the teeming fans is not only problematic, but potentially dangerous.
I was running commentary during the Ghana v Uganda match and when Tony Mawejje scored with the deflected shot, some Ghanaian fans below me were openly rejoicing and you could hear noise around the Baba Yara Sports Stadium.
In short, there is a serious disconnect between the fans and the Black Stars.
The fans feel short changed and taken for granted by the Black Stars, whom they now see as playing for money and not for the nation. Unless the players render an unqualified apology for their actions before, during and after Brazil and perhaps offer up their next winning bonuses to charity, the fans will continue to ignore the Black Stars and that could spell disaster for the team. Justifications would not help at all.
The GFA hierarchy also has to take steps towards ensuring that money is not the main concern for the team and that will also restore the broken bond between the fans and the players.
Team performance against Uganda
For once I did not do player ratings for the Uganda match because I doubt that anyone would have had 7/10 in my books. I will however summarise what I saw here now.
Fatau Dauda in my opinion should not be in posts because he was clearly off form and how he allowed a shot from Brian Umony to squirm under him is beyond me. Luckily that shot hit the post, otherwise Ghana would have lost and probably should have lost.
Harrison Afful tried his best and looked the most tactically aware of the back four. Jeffrey Schlupp was in my opinion the weakest link in Ghana’s defence and the Cranes kept attacking him down his flank. Indeed, the goal Uganda scored was as a result of a move down that very flank. His ball control for the game was also poor. I can only hope he does better in other games but this wasn’t good; putting it bluntly.
Jonathan Mensah looked calm and assured and had to cover for John Boye, who was average in my opinion. My disappointment was with the midfield duo of Rabiu Mohammed and Kwadwo Asamoah, who played well within themselves. Andre Ayew kept trying to make things happen without much success but showed bravery to convert the penalty (which was not a penalty in my book).
Christian Atsu had a very subdued game and couldn’t impose himself which was surprising. Asamoah Gyan was denied three times by Denis Onyango in the first half but was otherwise not really in the game and Abdul Majeed Waris only came to life in the second half.
For me, this team is talented enough to have dispatched the Ugandans but the team played without any penetration and verve. The pace was decidedly slow and the Cranes took full advantage. In my view Ghana was lucky to escape with a point.
Team spirit in camp
I might be in the minority of one, but I am beginning to feel that Asamoah Gyan would probably want to be just one of the boys rather than assume responsibilities as team captain. I wrote an open letter to Gyan recently and in it, I was remarking that he allowed himself to be manipulated into an impossible situation in Brazil by the likes of Sulley Muntari and Kevin Prince Boateng.
I am not holding brief for any of these players, but I do not think his authority is unquestioned in camp and that for me isn’t good enough. With what he had to go through, including bailing his brother out before the game (Still don’t know why Appiah still started him despite that), I believe that perhaps it is time that his position as captain of the team is reviewed.
This is because I do not believe that team spirit is the same as it was under Stephen Appiah and that cannot be good for the team going forward.
The players pretend to be together but calling a spade a spade, the team has cracks in it and it is time for leadership of the team to be reviewed, in my opinion.
Only time will tell if these things are done, but if they are not, the Black Stars is in danger of slipping into a dark period, much like the period between 1984 and 1992.
