Association football games are the most popular games in all of Ghana with male and female stars representing the country internationally. The Ghana Football Association administered the sport in 1957; it has witnessed several evolutions and successes over the years.
Ghana is represented in international association football games by male Black Stars and female Black Queens. The highest male football league in Ghana is the Ghana Premier League while the female is the Ghana Women’s Football League.
The Administration of Football in Ghana
The Ghana Football Association (GFA) brought football to the Gold Coast in 1957, but the game’s history goes further back. Toward the end of the nineteenth century, merchants from Europe unofficially introduced football to the Gold Coast. These merchants had, at this time, conquered the coastal areas of Ghana, building forts and castles to facilitate their trade. They would play football among themselves and with the locals in their leisure time; this contributed to the sport’s popularity.
Soon enough, the game became popular throughout the coast, bringing about the formation of the first football club. In 1903, Mr. Briton established the first football club, known as Excelsior, in Ghana. Mr. Briton was a Jamaican-born British man who served as the Head Teacher of Philip Quaque Government Boys School, Cape Coast. As the game grew in popularity, smaller clubs like Accra Hearts of Oak and Accra Standfast began to form along the coast.
The Gold Coast Football Association
The new Ghana Football Association (GFA) sprang from the Gold Coast Football Association, which was the governing body for football. The Gold Coast Football Association was founded in 1920, making it one of the oldest football associations in Africa. The first colonial cities in sub-Saharan Africa to formally host official leagues in the Gold Coast were Cape Coast and Accra.
The league first started, however weakly, in 1915; it kicked off in 1922 with the Accra Hearts of Oak taking the trophy. The trophy then was the Guggisberg shield, which was named after the British governor then, Sir Gordon Guggisberg. Sir Gordon Guggisberg is known in history as the pioneer of the Accra Football League.
The Gold Coast Amateur Sports Council
The Gold Coast Government enacted Ordinance 14 in 1952 to regulate all amateur sports associations, including football. The government established the Gold Coast Amateur Sports Council, granting it legal authority over football and other sports associations. However, as the game spread throughout Ghana, the existing clubs met in the late 30s to appoint a chairman. They elected Maabuo Akwei as Chairman; he served for twenty years until his ability was questioned in 1950.
Towards the mid-50s, the clubs, led by Ohene Djan, accused Maabuo Akwei of maladministration, questioning his ability to grow Ghanaian Football. Thus, they addressed the petitions to Sir Charles Arden-Clarke, the then Governor of the Gold Coast, and Joseph Ranadurai, Pioneer Sports Organizer. While they were addressing the petition, Djan led a revolution in 1957; he succeeded and overtook the Akwei Administration.
Shedding Off the Amateur Status
Ohene Djan became the General Secretary of the Football Association in 1957, officially culminating in the Ghana Amateur Football Association. In 1958 and 1960, he affiliated the Association with FIFA and the CAF respectively. Additionally, he secured sponsorship from Merrs R. R. Harding and Company, a pharmaceutical firm, for the first Ghanaian A cup tournament. Soon after, in the same year, he secured the services of George Ainsley, an expatriate Coach, for the National Football Team.
Furthermore, in 1959, a year before Ghana became a republic, Djan organized the first national league. Ghanaian football succeeded in shrugging its amateur status through the Winneba Declaration in 1993. Professional teams started forming, causing clubs to be incorporated as Limited Liability Companies under the companies code (Act 179, 1963).
Remarkable Feats of the Ghana Football Association Global
The Ghana Amateur Football Association won the bid to host the fifth Cup of Nations in 1963, which Ghana won. Ghana won the trophy again in 1965, beating Tunisia and recording a feat similar to what UAE T20 league online players record. In 1978, Ghana hosted and won the thirteenth Africa Cup of Nations and won again in 1982 in Tripoli, Libya. The National Football Team in Ghana has won the Africa Cup of Nations four times: 1963, 1965, 1978, and 1982.
Ghana, along with Cameroon, is considered the third most successful in the history of the Africa Cup of Nations. However, it wasn’t until 2006 after Kwesi Nyantaki revolutionized the game before Ghana could qualify for the FIFA World Cup. Nevertheless, Ghana had participated and been successful at the youth FIFA level, winning the under-17 title and finishing runner-up twice each. Ghana is the only African country to have won the U-20 Cup and the first to win a medal in Football in the Olympics.
Conclusion
The popularity of football spread like wildfire as soon as it was introduced in Ghana. The Ghanaian Football Association has recorded several massive successes, including the Black Queens winning the maiden WAFU Women Cup in 2018. Even today, the sport’s popularity hasn’t dwindled as it is the most popular sport in Ghana.