Citi Sports’ Nathan Quao gives his take on the imminent arrival of a technical adviser and where it leaves the Ghana Football Association
After months of evasion and denial, the cat was let out of the bag (or sack) when the Ghana Football Association on Monday that a committee (made of Fred Crenstsil, Fred Pappoe and the GFA’s Technical Director Oti Akenteng) had been set up “to appoint a technical adviser” for the Black Stars.
Wait a minute. A technical adviser or a technical director for the Black Stars?
Wow!!!! Why do that after stating strong support for the Black Stars technical team especially the head coach Kwesi Appiah?
Let’s all try a good guess.
Maybe because the man in charge is not as good as we all thought?
A huge maybe but the decision to bring in a second eye tells us the hard truths we either failed to see or were too scared to recognize after the 2013 AFCON.
There were deficiencies in the “guidance system” of the Black Stars that were pulled from the deepest crevice and placed on the bare Earth for the galaxy to observe.
Then we went to the World Cup in Brazil and the realities were again underlined. After that, the GFA said the head coach and his group were very fine and Kwesi Appiah was given a new contract. A juicier one that would see him take a pay rise and a buffed-up signing-on fee.
But a few weeks after that statement, the coach, who is seemingly loved by his bosses, will be getting someone to teach him a few new tricks.
So much for support.
The announcement more or less “kills” any thoughts of opposition and rebellion from anybody (even the head gaffer himself) but it leaves the Ghana Football Association with a lot of questions to answer.
How will the head coach and the technical adviser man the Black Stars boat? How sure are they that we will not see a turf war?
Is there a change in the chain of the command for the Black Stars players? Who do they respond to in a training session?
Is the head coach mandated to take orders or advice from the technical adviser?
For those of the conspiratorial breed, is the appointment of the technical adviser that first step in a sequence that ends with the sacking of Kwesi Appiah?
Questions, questions, questions and I am sure we will get the answers in due time.
CONCLUSIONS
When we peer through all the talk, we can see that the people at the GFA do agree with all of us that there is something wrong with the technical set up of the Black Stars. They may not say it and really, they must not.
They have added their names to the long list of examples that will support the theory that preaches that a lot of what we say is through non-verbal communication (The rap heads like me quote the 85 percent Beanie Sigel mentions in his rap song In The Air while the scientists talk about a figure that is slightly less).
The search for an adviser or director (pure semantics, if you ask me) could have been avoided if the head coach had been given the necessary support after the 2013 AFCON when he said to the press that he made some technical errors during the tournament.
That was the key point when the missing ingredient should have been added to the equation.
After dancing round the tree to look for the huge orange that was obvious, we are now back where we started and are still looking at the fruit. Just that now, we have purposed to bring in an extra eye.
But the people at the GFA should be reminded of one simple thing.
We will not accept just anybody for the job. We demand the best if indeed the move is to change the technical direction of the team.
The direction we will all be happy with is the one that will soon lead us to a trophy.