Ghana is sitting on a rich resource that she is yet to exploit, because she does not even know the great financial opportunity in this.
This wealthy resource is even a renewable resource which will never run out. This resource is sports.
Ghana had a fair share of quota in the world of sports, showing great prowess in the track and field, boxing and soccer. About over forty years ago, sports powerhouses like Nigeria always played second fiddle to Ghana in track and field and soccer.
The Golden 70s came with world beaters in the track and field, like Mike Ahey, Alice Annum, Grace Bakari, Hannah Afriyie, George Daniels, Ohene Karikari, Joshua Owusu and Ernest Obeng among others in athletes.
In fact, Ernest Obeng would have won gold in 100 m at the 1980 Moscow Olympic Games, if Ghana had not boycotted. He always beat the British Alan Wells, back-to-back. Great Britain did not boycott the Olympics and Alan Wells won gold.
In boxing, the likes of Azumah Nelson, Adamah Mensah, Kid Sumaila, Anthony Amartey, V. Attivor, E. O. Lawson, Sulley Shittu and E. F. Ankudey, lit up the touch of amateur boxing, with Azumah moving on to become the best pound for pound boxer in professional boxing in the 80s and early 90s.
D.K. Poison set the pace when in 1975 he became the first Ghanaian to win a world title in boxing. Azumah Nelson took Ghana’s professional boxing to a higher level when he ruled the world in two weight divisions in the 80s and 90s. Other boxers that brought glory to Ghana included Nana Yaw Konadu, Ike Quartey, Alfred Kotey, Joseph Agbeko, Joshua Clottey and currently Isaac Dogboe.
Soccer had a galaxy of stars that listing some and forgetting others will not be fair.
But I think I will be forgiven if I produce this short list which will include, Osei Kofi, Mohammed Ahmed Polo and Abdul Razak, who helped in clinching AFCON trophies. Stars as they were they did not tap into professional soccer in Europe. Then came, Tony Yeboah, Abedi Ayew and Prince Polley who took advantage of opportunities offered them to become professionals in great soccer nations, and they kept the flame burning even though they were not rewarded with international trophies. Michael Essien, Stephen Appiah, Sulley Muntari, Osei Kuffuor and Asamoah Gyan were among those who took Ghana to the 2006 FIFA World Cup finals, for the first time.
Ghana is a breeding ground for world stars in sports. The question is how are we grooming these talented males and females and set them on the path to become world beaters within that short span of sporting life? Apart from a few like golf, participants in the other rigorous energy exerting sports get into pension by the time they attain 35 years. Some may keep standing on their feet till age 40 years.
While it seems, some countries focus on sports from infancy to professional, making everything available in the community for children and the youth to play and build themselves into the sports, it is obvious Ghana is not looking that direction.
During the early years of this country after independence, there were parks and playing fields littered about, today they are almost extinct. Those were the days when boys and girls could go out and play, come home very tired in the evening, find something to eat and have the much-deserved sleep. These days, games the children and youth play are indoor video games.
Today, football fields like de Gaulle park in La, where George Alhassan, Dan Kayode and Abu Moro and others started soccer, has now gone back to the owner, the Presbyterian Church and a magnificent church now sits on the field.
The nation’s attention has been shifted to consider soccer, and only senior male soccer, as the only sport. Inadequate provision has been given to the other levels in soccer and other sports and there is stunted growth there. In the seventies, sports like track and field, soccer and boxing were on everybody’s lips with others like basketball, volleyball, tennis and field hockey making waves internationally. Today, this is not the case.
During that era, one could go and watch his team play in the local league and even if it got beaten, that supporter would still be very content because he had watched a good soccer game. These days, when one wants to have an afternoon rest and kids around keep disturbing, all he has to do is to trek to the stadium, buy a ticket and take a seat to watch a local league match. In the stands, he can have a good siesta and be woken up, fully refreshed after the match ends.
Ghana Football Association (GFA) is now more focused on the Black Stars and not making any effort to build a strong local league where football stars are born.
The FA goes chasing Ghanaians playing abroad but not preparing them, when they play the local league, here. The local teams will quickly sell off good talented footballers before they become ripe enough to stand shoulder to shoulder with professionals abroad. These days they can go for £25,000.00 in player transfer when with a few years in Ghana, they could go for at least £1.5 million.
If Ghana could go back to the 60s and 70s and build parks and recreational centers where children and youth will spend afternoon playing and competing against each other, in the various sports, we shall revive sports in general in this country.
Colt football should come back; academical games and annual national sports festivals should resume. Inter-zonal, inter-districts, regionals, inter-regions and national sports must be on our annual calendar.
When Ghana starts producing world beaters, money can flow in. This is so because, now sports pay a lot.
In athletes, the average annual salary of professionals is about $56,000.00 or GH¢788,000.00. That will be $4,666.00 or GH¢65,666.00 a month. There are about twenty-seven events in track and field.
In boxing, the average annual salary of professionals is about $40,000.00 or GH¢563,000.00. A cool $3,333.00 or GH¢47,000.00 a month. There are about seventeen weight divisions in this sport.
In soccer, the average annual salary of a professional differs from league to league, from division to division. But it is good to know that France’s 23-year-old, KylianMbappéof African descent, is now the top earner for the 2022-2023 season, with an annual salary of $128 million. We need not work out the conversion into Ghana cedis, because this will be in excess of GH¢ 1.8 billion.
In tennis, and this becomes very interesting, the annual salary a professional will get will depend on his or her ranking and number of games played a year. Those seeded 50-100 will earn about $510,456.00 or GH¢7,183,000.00 annually. That will be $42,538.00 or GH¢598,583.00 a month.
In basketball, the annual salary of professionals, ranges between $500,000.00 and $800,000.00 and volleyball is about $60,000.00 annually on the average. Professional field hockey players earn about $ 53,000.00 annually.
What am I driving at? Assuming in the case of soccer, we prepare our footballers well before selling them off, they can possibly be earning an average of $20 million a year.
Now, if Ghana gets world beaters in these seven sports who earn very good money, there is the possibility that these sports persons will invest heavily in the country. As some top footballers like Didier Drogba has done, developing their villages by putting up good schools and hospitals there, we can have our stars developing their ancestral towns and villages and gradually the developments will be so decentralised and evenly spread with the state spending just a little.
Since most of these sports persons come from poor homes, they will lift up the income of the household and poverty will be drastically reduced, enhancing our annual GDP.
All this can be possible, if the state and government can invest in this sector, then Ghana will create sterling, euro and dollar millionaires evenly spread across the country.
And what is important here is that, the sports fall among renewable resources. Every day, stars will be born at hospitals and maternity homes.
Our local leagues will be very competitive with players standing out and giving the professionals from abroad a run for their money.
Players chosen to play in the national teams would have worked for their position and not considering it as their bone fide property.
With sports thriving, companies and institutions will invest in the various sports clubs, and players will get good pay. With good financial advisors, they can invest into other sectors so by the time they retire from the sports, they will remain well cushioned for life.
Come to think of it, how will Ghanaians feel when our sports persons start putting up magnificent hotels and 1,000 bed hospitals with specialist facilities turning Ghanaian into a medical tourism hub? What about universities, factories, transport companies and others? And what about modern stadia and sports arenas?
Ghana has a great potential in sports, we need to move into exploiting that sector.
Hon. Daniel Dugan
