The two former Asante Kotoko and Ghana internationals revealed how experience can be a valuable asset in a team and can help the younger players in their development and teams shouldn't be quick to retire them.
Speaking on GTV’s Time with the Legends, former Kotoko player, Ahmed said Ghanaian clubs were quick to retire players once they were beyond their youthful days, a practice he said was a contributing factor to the decline in performance of Ghanaian clubs.
“When I was in Ghana some years back , I had an encounter with Daniel Nii Adjei, then a young and promising star with Kotoko in Kumasi after a Monday Stars match. After the game he walked up to me and said “Senior watching you closely we could use your services back at Kotoko, we’ll have a lot to learn from you but I told him they had retired us,” he said.
Issah Ahmed who once captained the Porcupine Warriors criticzed the media for discouraging old players to return to the game on the local scene.
“We can get a lot of them to return if the media stop being so critical and labeling them as old players who have passed their prime and can’t deliver. The media is always quick to forgive young players when they make mistakes during games but when an old player makes a mistake he is harshly and at times unjustifiably critiqued and not forgiven,”
Yussif Chibsah on the other hand said kicking out experience players is a bad practice that deprives most young stars the opportunity of learning from the old stars.
“Most of these old stars I can confidently say have a lot of energy and football in their legs, yet we are quick to cast them aside and shut the door on them,”
“I can’t begin to list the values we learnt from the old Stars on and off the field; playing with greats such as Emmanuel Ampiah, Joe Debrah and later Godwin Ablordey was valuable to our careers – their guidance, discipline and counsel is largely missing today and this is a matter of grave concern,” he added.