As she started talking the journalist interviewing her could not help but notice the silvery glint of a tear in the corner of her eyes. He gently asked rather rhetorically; are you crying? Here was Mercy Miles, a player who had captained Ghana\u2019s female teams at all levels culminating in captaining the Black Queens to gold at the All- African Games gold in Congo Brazzaville, choking on tears, not of joy, but of frustration. When the members of the Black Queens decided not to leave their team hotel in Accra until all bonuses prior to and during the games were paid, this was not just a common strike over bonuses, a generation of women footballers had finally decided to take a stand against the shabby treatment of women in Ghana football.<\/p>\n
The following opinion will not seek to probe the side issues like who promised what before the 2015 All African games and or whether or not the girls\u2019 actions were right or wrong; those are the side issues. The meatier matters border on the fact that for years the senior women\u2019s senior team and indeed women\u2019s football generally have been treated as second citizens by the GFA and ministry of sports.<\/p>\n
When the Black Stars sneeze the nation gets a cold, but not the Black Queens. They could contract pneumonia for all we care and hardly anyone would notice.\u00a0 The exception is when the Black Queens reached world cups and enabled travelling opportunities for fans and sports officials. So after failing to reach the 2015 world cup in Canada, even supporters unions who had hinged their Canadian dreams on the Black Queens became disgruntled. The scenario sums up grotesquely the value women\u2019s football has had for Ghana football all these years- Great for travelling, rubbish for everything else.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not just supporters who rode on the wings of participation of Ghana\u2019s women\u2019s teams\u00a0\u00a0 to International tournaments. Some Ghana Football Association officials, mostly so-called management committee members, will all but disappear when meaningful contributions to the Women\u2019s game are required only to resurface during qualifiers or when tournament trips are ready for booking. I wonder how many of them ever saw a women\u2019s football league game.<\/p>\n
It is little surprise then that our Black Queens sat at home while their peers delighted the world at Canada 2015. In truth Ghana no longer belongs to that class of senior women\u2019s international football anymore. Anybody who has seen\u00a0games from the World Cup earlier this year would have realized that African sides like Cameroon and Nigeria have taken their games to new heights. (Ivory Coast may have lost 10-0 to Germany but that is excusable against the 2-Time winners). As for Germany, USA, Japan, France, Brazil, Norway and Sweden; we can only watch and admire their prowess.<\/p>\n
The French were not even at the 1999 tournament when Ghana made a historic first appearance at the World Cup. The Japanese, the current World Champions could only finish bottom of their group with one point and a goal difference of -9- the same point tally and goal difference Ghana\u2019s black Queens finished with in Group D.<\/p>\n
12 years later Japan became world Champions in women\u2019s football and Ghana\u2026?<\/p>\n
Well, we are a jumbo mess. No longer are the Black Queens neck-and-neck with eternal rivals Nigeria. There\u2019s now a huge chasm between the two countries in the senior women\u2019s game. Ghana is not even number 2 on the continent anymore. I will put us at number 6, behind Nigeria, Cameroon, the Ivory Coast, South Africa and Equatorial Guinea.<\/p>\n
In 1999 the generation of Alberta Sackey, Nana Ama Gyamfuah, Adwoa Bayor, Elizabeth Baidoo and others made history by becoming the first Ghanaian Senior National team to qualify for a FIFA World cup. The Queens made it two appearances in a row in 2003 when they improved upon their previous performance by finishing on three points. A narrow 1-0 loss to previous runners up China to whom they had lost to by 7-0 in 1999 showed that the gap was narrowing. By all indications all was set for Ghana to overtake Nigeria as africa\u2019s number one team (the Nigerians crushed out in 2003 with no points at all). Ghana\u2019s Black Queens seemed to be enjoying an Indian summer. Sadly all that changed and everything went downhill afterwards.<\/p>\n
The men finally qualified for the World Cup in 2006 and the Black Stars became a viable commercial entity and the main GFA cash cow. So the women went back to being the second Citizens of Ghana football that they had always been, thus started the decline of the once famous Black Queens of Ghana. As the women turned the other cheek, their pampered male colleagues only turned the other cheek when they were about to swing a left hook! (As evidenced by the hotel skirmishes at Brazil 2014 between Black Stars players and FA officials)<\/p>\n
I am by no means saying I expect the Queens and the Stars to be treated at Par in everything. That is unrealistic. However, for a Country that in the last decade has prided itself with women\u2019s empowerment and celebrated many women firsts- Chief Justice, Speaker of Parliament and more, I believe our women footballers have been given a raw deal. The senior national women\u2019s team particularly has remained just a footnote in the thinking of Ghana\u2019s football administrators. I am surprised women footballers have never bothered to wear Black funeral cloths to besiege the GFA offices to demand better attention… until now.<\/p>\n
Admittedly, there have been isolated successes at the junior level- case in point is the third place finish at the 2012 FIFA U-17 Championships. If there is any group to thank it would be the corporate sponsors like Milo and Airtel whose initiatives to organize competitions unearth the best of those young talents. The GFA had little to do with it the actual organization of the regional competitions. There doesn\u2019t even appear to be a proper plan in women\u2019s football for talent identification, retention and grooming.<\/p>\n
So it\u2019s 2015 now. Ghana\u2019s Black Queens have missed out on the World Cup and are trying to make amends starting with winning gold at the All-Africa Games but no, officials again have to kill their resurgence by failing to pay bonuses. Would the heights of winning a gold medal and a drive to do more still be intact\u00a0 within the Queens\u00a0 when the next big event comes around, after the unfaithfulness of Ghanaian officials?<\/p>\n
The challenges of women\u2019s football go deeper than unfulfilled promises. I recall a news item on the GFA\u2019s website on April 16, 2015 \u201cThe <\/em>Ghana Football Association has decided<\/em><\/strong> to assist Clubs who will participate in this year’s National Women’s League with an amount of GHC 36,000\u201d.<\/p>\n Decided? I asked myself.\u00a0 It\u2019s nice of the GFA to give a charity hand out for the \u2018second citizens\u2019. But this should not be described as assistance but rather the legitimate responsibility of the football administration. Since 2007 FIFA has required (since introduction of a regulation in 2004) every member association to spend at least fifteen per cent of their annual USD 250,000 Financial Assistance Programme (FAP) on women\u2019s football. Because it is a minimum bar, countries like Costa Rica last year spent upwards of 35% on improving their women\u2019s national team. The question is what percentage of Ghana\u2019s FAP does the GFA allocate to women\u2019s football? How promptly is this released, that is, if it is released at all?<\/p>\n Page 46 of the FIFA financial report for 2014 states \u201cFurthermore, thanks to the financial success of the 2011-2014 cycle, FIFA also gave each member association an extraordinary FAP payment of USD 1,050,000<\/em> …\u201d. Presumably, the Ghana\u2019s FAP for last year was a bumper harvest. I will be keen to know the breakdown of how this money was (or is being) spent and whether the Women got their minimum 15%- which seems quite substantial to me. You do the math and conclude on what such investment can do for the Gutter-to-Gutter football that we currently call our Womens\u2019 league!<\/p>\n Canada 2015 has passed so there will be a race to reach the next world cup. We are already underdogs in the fight for Africa\u2019s three slots. Whether Ghana will be able to put up a fight will depend on how much planning, work and money the GFA is willing to push into the Women\u2019s game now- and I am not talking about donations or hand outs.\u00a0 Mercy Miles and her team have made a strong statement: the women will not be taken for granted.<\/p>\n Under the current circumstances I am not sure The Queens can reach the Rio 2016 Olympics. It might take a mini miracle of some sort given that our major competitors returned from Canada stronger.\u00a0 But you never say never again, and that applies also to unpaid bonuses (scoffs). We are better off working a four-year plan targeted at the 2019 FIFA Women\u2019s World Cup in France. We have a stream of young talented girls who would have come to maturity in time but then there is nothing automatic about reaching France in four years time. I bet the GFA officials and supporters unions will love a trip to France. Well if you want to get there then it is about time you work their butts off to push the Black Queens back into the elite of women\u2019s football.<\/p>\n By: Samuel Bartels<\/p>\n