Poor management by GFA and Government affecting sports in Ghana - Hon Kobena Woyome speaks

The member of parliament for South Tongu constituency, Hon Kobena Mensah Woyome has blamed the GFA and government for the disastrous tournament the Blackstars had at the just ended AFCON.

In a statement released in parliament, the ranking member for sports committee expressed his disappointment in the lack of commitment in making sports attractive to the youth. Read below;

A STATEMENT BY HON. KOBENA MENSAH WOYOME, MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT FOR SOUTH TONGU CONSTITUENCY AND THE RANKING MEMBER - YOUTH, SPORTS AND CULTURE COMMITTEE ON A CHRONICLE OF THE POOR PERFORMANCES OF GHANA BLACK STARS AND THEIR INABILITY TO GO BEYOND GROUP STAGES IN AFCON TOURNAMENTS

Mr. Speaker, my heart aches as I make this statement in expressing our collective extreme disappointment and shock once again at the poor performance of Ghana Black Stars leading to another unprecedented early exit at this year’s AFCON Championship.
Ghana Black Stars, one of the top teams on the continent of Africa once again, did not live up to the expectations of many across the continent, the rest of the world and in particular Ghanaians at the just ended African Continental Football championship in Abidjan.

Mr. Speaker, the history of the performances of the Black Stars shows that, the first time they exited the AFCON tournament in the first stage was in 1980 in Nigeria with 3 points as defending champions; then in 1984 in Cote D’Ivoire they exited also with 3 point as defending champions; in 1998 in Burkina Faso, they exited with 3 points and in Egypt in 2006 once again an early exit with 3 points. This is the first time in the history of Ghana Black Stars that they exited at the group stage of the AFCON tournaments consecutively (Cameroon and la Cote d’ Ivoire) with one and two points respectively signifying the bad state of the Black Stars’ participation in the elite continental competition.

Mr. Speaker, this disappointing trend can only be attributed to poor management of the team right from coach selection, player selection, and poor coordination of pre-tournament preparations. Therefore, the poor performance on the field of play such as player coordination, in-fighting, technical deficiencies and confusion can only be attributed to poor management decisions by the leadership of the Football Association and Government; lack of proper sports development structures and inadequate investments in domestic football, particularly Juvenile also known as colts within the communities; School sports initiatives such as the Milo and Valco sponsored regional and national Championships among various second cycle schools that help identify, and groom talents to feed the various national teams and domestic clubs are militating against victory in tournaments even though
The consistent failure of the Black Stars of Ghana
to go beyond the group stages raises serious concern. football in Ghana particularly the Black Stars has been the most funded among all sports.


Mr. Speaker, a re-look at Ghana’s performances show that the nation has won the AFCON on four (4) occasions (1963,1965,1978, & 1982). The Black Stars have equally been five (5) times runners-up in (1968, 1970, 1992, 2010 & 2015). Their
in order to make a mark at least if not win the tournament; what is preventing us from building on our past legacies?

Mr. Speaker, it is not only the Black Stars performances that keep dwindling on the international arena in recent times. Ghana’s performance and fortunes in various sport competitions keep dwindling as seen in the 2023 participation in various international competitions. For example, the 13 boxers that Ghana took to the Africa Olympic Boxing qualifiers in Darker Senegal, September 2023 all lost out on qualification slot to the Paris 2024 Olympic Games to be held in France in July and August 2024; but have other opportunities on the global stage to qualify. Also, the National Athletics Team participation at the 2023 world championship was a disaster for Team Ghana as none of the members could make it past the preliminary stages. As we speak now, no Ghanaian athlete or discipline has qualified for the competition with six months to go, but hope the upcoming African Games would be used as the means to qualify as many as possible of our sportsmen and women to the global elite sport fiesta. Also, the performance of various national football teams at the age group competitions like the U-17, U- 20, U-23 (male and female) and the local Black Stars is nothing to write home about. But I hereby congratulate our elite female national team, the Black Queens for qualifying once again to the 2024 Women Africa Cup of Nations to be held in Morrocco and The National U-20 Female Team, the Black Princesses for qualifying for the FIFA U-20 World Cup to be held in Colombia later this year.

Mr. Speaker, Ghana is beginning to lose her shine as one of the top teams on the African continent due to these recent poor performances and scandals such as
impressive performance at the 2006 World Cup in Germany raised the brand
of Ghana football globally and attracted support and admiration from Africa,
Asia, Europe and the Americas. In my opinion, it was this powerful brand
enhancement from the successes in Germany, that added value to Ghana
towards the successes chalked in the hosting of CAN 2008. Is it that we have
not learnt any critical lessons
the Anas Aremeyaw Anas’s investigation which was released in 2018,
highlighting the level of corruption among football administrators and

referees in Ghana. It revealed how match officials openly negotiated and
took bribes to help teams win matches. This negative revelation unmasked
the poor leadership at the helm of Ghana football at the time. These remain
a visible scar on Ghana football administration.

Mr. Speaker, with every tournament that comes around, millions of dollars are pumped into the team, with the justification being that they market Ghana, bring the nation together, and provide pride, patriotism, and purpose that can’t be quantified. Undoubtedly so, but not sacrifice the call to be prudent with expenditure particularly when the time in which the county finds itself in negotiations with IMF and other bilateral partners to restructure its debt and get finance of budget deficit underway.
In 2019, the government reportedly blew $4.5 million (after budgeting over $6 million) on the team’s participation, which ended at the 1/16th stage. The prize money from CAF for winners of the tournament at that time was $4.5 million, and the Black Stars had managed to spend as much despite coming nowhere near the trophy in Egypt.
Before this 2023 AFCON in Côte d’Ivoire, the budget was shrouded in secrecy (not officially declared) — a glaring insult to the intelligence of fans. But an idea of how inflated it was would be revealed when the Ghana Football Association (GFA) displayed what many considered an incredible and unbridled extravagance.
Mr. Speaker, as things stand now, I want to side with Amos Safo a
Development and Communications Manager and a Social Justice Advocate
in his write up on ‘Black Stars’ fiasco and our national psyche’ that sports,
especially football, may be one of the major failures of the Akufo-Addo -
Bawumia Administration. The decline in Ghana’s football is more painful
because, it is the taxpayers’ money that is used to finance sports under the
poor supervision of the current National Sports Authority and Ghana Football Association management. Again Mr. Speaker, the current practice of club owners managing football according to some experts in the industry,
but may be subjective, promotes conflict of interest, corruption and
nepotism, as they tend to favour their own players over better skilled,
positional players.

For us to see some positive turn around in Ghana Football, and given the central role of sports in national development and fostering unity, there is the need for the government as a matter of urgency initiate a process for a holistic sport development agenda that adopts short, medium to long term approaches in order to restore sports and Ghana football in particular from the grassroots to the top (Clubs, Black Stars and Black Queens) at the global stage, as was suggested by the flagbearer of the NDC.
There is also the need for the formulation of a prudent national policy document for Ghana sport (including football) detailing short-, medium- and long-term plans and the de-politicisation of our football and sports in general.
Mr. Speaker, there is the need to rethink of the quality of the investments being made in sports today. For instance, the use of our rather scarce resources to build sub-standard community pitches that do not meet international standards and cannot be used for league matches. The poor state of the NSA managed sports facilities such as our various stadia, namely Essipon, Cape Coast and Tamale, deteriorate, in spite of huge costs of periodic maintenance according to NSA is most worrying. The mismanagement of some of these sports facilities in the name of revenue generation is also worth mentioning. We need to remind the National Sports Authority (NSA) of section 3 of Act 934 which indicates the following: 1. Provision of necessary facilities required for building national teams and not sub-standard facilities.
2. The need for the submission of proposals on matters relating to the development and maintenance of national teams.
3. Transparency and accountability in the development and management of national teams.
4. That all moneys received by law of sponsorship, gifts and any other benefits for national teams are properly accounted for.
5. The organisation of biannual sports congress to review sports development for the period and map out strategies for sports development for the future.
In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, enough of the pain and disgrace to our national brand. I hope and pray that this will not be just a statement made on the floor of this august House, but that which should push us to work to re-clothe Ghana with the pride of having formidable teams capable of raising high again the flag of mother Ghana in any tournament. Let me use this opportunity to congratulate La Cote D’Ivoire for hosting and fighting through to win the cup making their nation proud, but for Nigeria, better luck next time.


Mr. Speaker, I thank you for the opportunity.