Someone should tell me why Sports Minister Mustapha Ussif and Chief Executive Officer of the National Sports Authority (NSA) Mr. Dodzi Numekevor should report for work this morning. They deserve the boot.I am disappointed in my senior friend and President of the Republic of Ghana, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo for failing to raise a finger after the Confederation of African Football (CAF) banned our only remaining pitch, the Baba Yara Sports Stadium, from hosting any international football tournament with immediate effect.
With the ban on Baba Yara Stadium, Ghana does not have any football arena for organising any international tournament. The OheneDjan Stadium in Accra, the Cape Coast Stadium, Essipong Stadium in Sekondi and the AliuMahama Stadium in Tamale have all been condemned as unsuitable for hosting the rest of the world in association football.
What this means is that this country, the first to gain independence and the first nation to play football as an organised sport in Sub-Saharan Africa, has to go to our neighbouring countries of Nigeria or La Cote d’Ivoire, on our knees, begging for an arena to host our international matches.
For me, the disgrace and inconvenience these two leaders have plunged this nation into by their inactions and abysmal failure to execute their core functions, is tantamount to what begat ‘Government Official One’ and subjected this proud nation to ridicule at the Southwark Crown Court in London and indictment prosecution papers in France and the United States of America.
For meand most reasoning Ghanaians, it is an indictment for a sitting Head of State to negotiate with his own blood brother, Samuel ForsterMahama and two Britain-based accomplices to buy three aircrafts for Ghana, during which Airbus paid Three million Euros in blood money. Mahama as Government Official One has brought the state of Ghana into disrepute and should have NEVER been allowed for his effigy to appear on the ballot box as a contender for the highest office of the land.
The pronouncement by the Office of the Special Prosecutor that Government Official One might not have benefitted from bribery is BUNKUM. There is clear evidence that his brother was bribed.
In the same vein, the Minister of Sports, Mustapha Ussif and his Chief Executive Officer at the National Sports Authority, Dodzie Numekevor, should be sent packing for disgracing the whole country.
According to CAF officials, this country cannot even grow grass at our international arena and cannot keep simple lessons in sanitation, with our washrooms smelling badly.
Football in Ghana is not everything, in terms of the average Ghanaian’s source of satisfaction. It is the only thing. Many may not know this. But football was pioneered in Ghana before the game was taken to Nigeria, East Africa and the Southern parts of the continent. Along the West Coast, the game was taken to Cote d’Ivoire, Sierra Leone, Guinea and Senegal. Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger also drunk from the experimental pool in Ghana.
For the uninitiated, football was pioneered by school boys of the Philip Quarcoo Government Boys School in1903. Two selected teams from the same club-Exelsoir, made up of boys of Philip Quarcoo Boys School, later named Government Boys School, outdoored the game under moonlight at the Victoria Park, now Jubilee Park, Cape Coast.
It is interesting to note that the school boys had been organising secret trainingsessions in preparation for the outdooring, under Mr. Briton, a Jamaican-born head teacher of the school.
There had been elaborate preparation for the big day. Jerseys and boots had been ordered from Liverpool. On the grand day, therefore, the boys were in brand new jerseys and wore boots.The experiment in Cape Coast excited the rest of the country, leading to the formation of many football clubs.
Most of these pioneering clubs have since fallen on bad times and collapsed. The oldest existing club is Accra Hearts of Oak, founded on November 11, 1911. Football was played at street corners and any available space in cities, towns and villages in the then Gold Coast, until the 1948 disturbances, which also speeded up the process to independence.
In its recommendation, the Coussey Committee, which probed some aspects of the 1948 disturbances, recommended to the British Colonial masters to construct a stadium. The committee established that lack of a standard stadia for the youth, especially to exercise,was one of the reasons why the riots were so devastating.
Following this recommendation, the British Colonial masters constructed the Accra Sports Stadium for the people of the Gold Coast.Following the success of the Accra Stadium to provide amenities for sports, the colonial government asked the multi-national company,United African Company (UAC), which was benefitting a lot from cocoa purchases in the Ashanti Province, to build a stadium in Kumasi.
Consequently, the UAC put up a magnificent Stadium. The new edifice opened in 1960 and together with the Accra Stadium provided facilities for the upsurge in sports in Ghana over its rivals in sub-Saharan Africa. In 1963, the two stadia provided the venue for the Black Stars’ maiden triumph in the African Cup of Nations.
This country used the two stadia, until President John Agyekum Kufuour’s regime decided to bid and host the 2008 African Cup of Nations. To the glory of God, I played a useful role in helping to win the bid to host 15 other nations in the 2008 Cup of Nations in January and February 2008.
The expansion of the participating nations from eight to 16 meant Ghana had to look for other options, beyond the Accra and Kumasi Stadia.
The nation constructed the Sekondi (Essipon) and the Aliu Mahama Sports Stadia. There was one snag though. During the inspection stage by CAF, one Tunisian official kept raising red flag about the suitability of Tamale to host such a monumental event.
To cater for any eventuality, the Cape Coast Stadium was proposed as a standby, in case of any eventuality. Apparently, the Local Organising Committee (LOC) was using a shorter route from the Tamale Airport to the construction site of the now Aliu Mahama Sports Stadium.
The by-pass went behind the township of Tamale, raising fearsin the visitors that Tamale may not be a town and that the President wanted the stadium in Tamale for political reasons.
Unfortunately, none of us, the Ghanaian hosts, understood what the Tunisian and his delegation meant, until an incident happened that changed the whole narrative.
As had been the norm, the LOC planned for lunch in Cape Coast after a round trip by air from Accra, through Sekondi. On one auspicious day, the mission was late. Dinner was, therefore, served at Gariba Lodge in downtown Tamale. It was the first time the contingent had driven through the Tamale township.
You would hear the visitors’ sigh of relief. ‘TAMALE- TOWN,’they all screamed. Tamale was, therefore, accepted as avenue for the championship and Cape Coast was developed after the championship.
In effect, Ghana has five standard stadia for international matches. That we cannot grow grass on any of them and cannot stem the appalling sanitation at all the five stadia is an indictment on Sports Minister Mustapha Ussif and his NSA boss Mr. Dodzie Numekevor.
They have no place in sports promotion in Ghana anymore, I am afraid. If they would not resign dis-honourably, I expect Show-Boy Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to withdraw their appointments. They have disgraced this nation enough.
I shall return!
Ebo Quansah in Accra
