It is an undisputable fact that Ghana is one of the football giants on the continent of Africa. Indeed, it is the only country on the black continent that has won both FIFA Under 17 and Under 20 football world cups. Not even Egypt and Cameroon, who have won the African Cup of Nations tournament seven and five times respectively, have managed to achieve this feat.
Unfortunately, despite all these laurels the country has achieved on the international stage, facilities for the game of football in Ghana are nothing to write home about. It is, therefore, not surprising that most Ghanaian soccer fans nowadays prefer watching the European leagues to the Ghana Premier league.
Apart from the bad pitches, which make the game unattractive, the coverage of these games can best be described as amateurish. The Chronicle is, therefore, not surprised that Ghanaian football league champions always fail to impress when they go to Africa.
Though the government in an attempt to reverse the trend constructed two new stadia some years back and also renovated the popular Baba Yara and Accra Sports stadia, we are not seeing any significant improvement in the game. Karela United and Real Tamale United are both based in Tamale, but they played their home league matches in faraway Nalerigu, during the last league season, due to the bad nature of the pitch at the Tamale Sports Stadium.
The pitches at both Baba Yara and Accra Sports stadia are also nothing to write home about, but because we have set low standard for the game in Ghana, we do not see any wrong with that. Regrettably, despite the clear danger starring at us, the National Sports Authority (NSA), which has the mandate to manage state owned stadia in the country are exacerbating the situation.
Under the guise of raising internally generated revenue to take care of these sporting facilities, the NSA has been renting Accra, Kumasi and Tamale stadia for musical concerts and church activities. But instead of protecting the pitches, a wholesale access is given to the people who have rented the facilities. At the end of the day, they destroy the pitches, making it impossible for the players to properly control balls when they are playing.
Though members of the public have severely criticised some of these decisions, the NSA remains adamant. Now the coach and players of the senior national team, the Black Stars, are complaining bitterly about the standard of the pitch in the Kumasi Sports Stadium. According to them, the bad pitch contributed to the one nil loss they suffered at the hands of their Angolan counterparts.
Truly it is not only Otto Addo, coach of Black Stars that complained about the pitch. His Angolan counterpart also said the same thing. This development came about because a few weeks to the match, the NSA decided to rent out the stadium for church activities, which completely destroyed the green grass.
But instead of accepting the criticisms about the bad nature of the pitch in good faith, a deputy Director of the NSA decided to muddy the waters. “Are they suggesting that the Angolans were playing in the sky? They are all footballers and both teams played on the same pitch. CAF inspected and approved the pitch for the game, so let’s focus on what happened on the field,” this officer was quoted as saying.
This arrogant posture is one of the things that is retrogressing Ghana football. The frustrations of soccer fans after Ghana lost to Angolan should have pricked the conscience of this NSA official to respond to the criticisms in a mature way, but alas that did not happen.
The last time we checked, this man was still at post when his decision to rent out the stadium and subsequent destruction of the pitch could have plunged this country of ours into chaos, judging from the way some of the fans behaved after the match had come to an end. In our view, if Ghana is to bounce back when it comes to the game of soccer, our government would have a crucial role to play.
The Chronicle is, therefore, appealing to the president and his sports ministry to sit up by addressing the issue of bad pitches in our stadia. Whether we like it or not, football has serious implications when it comes to national security. So if somebody is destroying our pitches in the name of raising funds and thereby destroying the beauty of the game, the end result could be violence.
Football stadia are built for the game of football and other sporting activities. They are certainly not meant for churches and artistes to perform on the pitches and destroy them. Unless the government is happy with the current state of football in Ghana, drastic measures should be adopted on how to improve upon our pitches.
