Asamoah Gyan's armband saga - The impunity continues!

Captain Asamoah Gyan, Coach Kwesi Appiah and our GFA officials may not understand this but the captains armband in football is not a fashion statement. It symbolises the authority of whoever is lucky enough to be chosen to be captain of the national team. It happens not to be the property of one person. England, for instance, have had five captains in the last few months and who cares.

No one person is entitled to be captain of a national team. It is an honour to be chosen to be one and the position does deserve the respect of whoever is chosen. Being chosen to wear the armband is like being called to hold a company flag in army battles of yore. Those flags , during wars, were carried by a chosen soldier. They represented the centre of the army, the heartbeat, an inspiration and a rallying point. Soldiers carried those flags with pride and would rather die than let go of them. And when the flag bearer was wounded or killed, another soldier would pick up the flag and charge into battle.

One of the most solemn and yet simple ceremonies in football is when a captain of the day is substituted and he stops and respectfully places the armband on the next captain. It is a simple ceremony but one that carries an important message. It would be the captain telling the team, "I may be leaving the game, but I leave you in the good hands of my successor. Serve him with the same enthusiasm and dedication you gave me. I may not be with you physically, but my spirit is with you. God be with you." There could not be any better symbol of unity and ones of purpose than that.

In Ghana, however, the captaincy has become a vessel for the expression of arrogance and impunity. Not only do we spend an unbelievable amount of energy and time drawing wedges in the team with useless captaincy debates, the captain then decides to send a message of his entitlement to the position by having his personal image embossed on the armband. When it was time to be replaced, there was no symbolic passing of the baton to the next man. It was his personal armband, and maybe his personal team as well, so he simply walked off while the next captain waited around the touch line for an armband to be produced from somewhere for him. It was one of the most embarrassing moments in Ghana football.

And when a GFA official was asked why they had allowed that when they could be liable to financial sanctions by FIFA, his answer was short and insightful - "We will pay!" he said.

Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the culture of arrogance and impunity!