A good majority of us are so critical of the senior national team, the Black Stars. That wasn’t the situation, I believe, until the disgrace the team caused us at the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil, where the players, showing their lack of faith in leadership’s assurances on delayed payment of appearance fees revolted in Brazil.
It was embarrassing. Players however kissed wades of dollar bills once the millions of dollars airlifted from Accra to Brazil landed at their camp. The team had put money before everything else. Not surprisingly, we exited the competition at the group stage with a point losing to the United States, drawing with Germany and beaten by Portugal.
Former Ghana Football Association (GFA) President, Kwesi Nyantakyi, put it well when he said “money ruined us in Brazil” (see Daily Graphic June 27, 2014). But it wasn’t really the players. It was leadership failure. Because leadership is a function of what transpire in the larger populace, we all can’t run away from blame.
The country failed to preempt the voracious players’ hunger for money. That was when the love for Black Stars waned and it dropped further when public utterances by some players affirmed the notion that, their interest was more about money. Their salaries at their clubs are better but a ravenous condition for money via the Black Stars had been created getting fans incensed as they gradually drifted away from the team.
The Kurt Okraku administration pressed the right button late 2019, initiating the ‘Bring Back the Love’ campaign. It was a brilliant move. I saw how it caught fire at their first Black Stars game in Cape Coast against South Africa. Sadly, Covid-19, months on, would fatally truncate everything; quench lives worldwide, collapse businesses and extinguish normal living – not leaving out football. Ghana wasn’t spared.
With the steady return to normality, one would’ve thought that the passion for Black Stars would’ve have been consciously ignited with deep, thoughtful moves. The GFA has however steered off course, creating avoidable public disaffection for the team. The 2021 fiasco in Cameroon hasn’t help matters neither has the surprised refusal to apologise to fans been any needful.
Fans can’t say they dislike the Black Stars yet continue to show interest in everything the team does. Our relationship with the Black Stars is akin to that of a lovely mum and her stubborn daughter. No matter the ills of this child, mum will still come around when her child is up. It’s why the GFA has to rethink some of their steps.
If some fans have turned negative and critical of the Black Stars; that didn’t spring up like a bomb explosion. It’s a disaffection born out of events in and around the team. There must be decisive, deliberate, intentional efforts to court more public support. We’re naturally bond to the team and thereby are bound to follow them everywhere.
If truly, the GFA a section of the public as being too critical and caustic against Black Stars, what corrective steps have been taken to reverse these negatives? The GFA must inevitably rethink their posturing on igniting the passion as it isn’t that clear now.
Fans who accepted the ‘Bring Back the Love’ are mostly the same fans who are being caustic and much won’t change, until, and unless we work to erase any mistrust using open, carefully thought-out public engagement besides what happens on the pitch.
It’s not late. It’s vital. Not all fans will be convinced or even come onboard happily but with time, those who have eyes will see and those have ears will listen. Please, GFA President, Kurt Okraku, rework the igniting passion mantra. It’s not late. Please, do it. We've got suggestions to make in that regard.