Moses Armah (Mosespacka) success with Medeama SC in their African Confederation Cup campaign is evidence that Ghana football needs rich men.
The reality is the $300,000 Mosespacka spent at the qualifying rounds to get Medeama SC to the group stage. It was the clearest sign yet that, at this point in our football history, the rich can bring us success.
The rich in football are winning on the pitch and they’re winning off it. Mosespacka should make us think differently about everything and everyone in football.
For instance, the huge monetary investment of former Berekum Chelsea President and rich owner, Emmanuel Kyeremeh was the reason the club is the last Ghanaian team to get to CAF Champions League Group Stage.
It is the rich and bright men who surely want the best for their club, and will make their club look good and attractive by investing money.
The modern game has not got the stomach to take the poor on and so it ends up discouraging and depriving many off their passion. Dare to run a football club without enough money and you are in the future labelled as an apostate in the game.
New Edubiase United sadly wailing with their culture of withdrawing from the Ghana Premier League only emphasizes the importance of the rich. It means the club has reached rock-bottom. That was evident in the letter they sent to the GFA to withdraw.
Every club owner, past and present, is viewed through the prism of the potential disillusionment that each one of them is a rich man. How sad that excellence is not true, is merely imagined. It is desperately dispiriting but no one believes in much that most club owners are not rich.
Sometimes, you wonder what football did not to deserve more rich people. What did it do to a times put club owners in, so hapless and hopeless situation?
Football makes the owner get popular; gets profile; and gets prestige. The rich gets that recognition when a club is turned into a football business model in an arena that attracts only opprobrium. That’s the worst part as, the game at our world can a times be callous, cynical and treacherous.
However, we must accept that cash and glory coalesce. And that is nice, because if one has to run a club with no money, then glory will be sacrificed.
Insiders or analyst of Ghana football are always quoted as saying that the balance and success of Ghanaian clubs in Africa depends on monetary values. The status of excelling in Africa depends on revenue streams.
To those with long memories and an appreciation of the proud traditions of football, should not let the article feel like an insensitive and classless message. If there are better ways of saving the face of our game than this, then we need the rich.
Because one of the things that football stands for, one of the things that give clubs their dominance and their cachet is money.
Mosespacka have spent money, sure. Lots of it. There are still lots to spend at the group stage. No one needs to tell us that it is not easy just to throw money into football.
We at times seem to have forgotten that football is still about something, which is money; we at times seem to have forgotten that money is still needed in the glory game; and we at times still have forgotten that money comes from the rich.
It is nice to think that Mosespacka’s money could be the catalyst that pushed Medeama towards the group stage.
Seriously, so far, the success of Mosespacka’s Medeama SC in the African Confederation Cup campaign tells that football needs the rich as owners.