I have not been closely following affairs between the political operatives of the Mahama-led National Democratic Congress (NDC) assigned to the Ministry of Sports, on the one hand and, I suppose, the elected officials of the Ghana Football Association (GFA). Even so, it has become quite clear to me for some time now that the last set of humans anybody could have managing the affairs of the country’s sporting activities, especially soccer, are politicians. It goes without saying that our woeful inability to remarkably improve the caliber of Ghanaian soccer at the senior international level, beyond elimination series, has been the result of the abject lack of competent managerial skills on the part of government appointees ceded charge of the sports ministry.
These political operatives invariably add absolutely nothing substantive or progressive towards the salutary development of the sport in the country. They are all, by and large, a parasitic species of vermin. I followed the brief career of the last NDC ministerial operative assigned to the sports ministry and came to the grim and definitive conclusion that this portfolio is all about pouring money into the wallets of party machine operatives and their prime sponsors at the Flagstaff House. For rather than healthily incentivize our very talented players, a remarkable percentage of whom have carved enviable niches for themselves in the international arena, these political parasites are hell-bent on scamming the real people and heroes on the ground, the players the dint of whose diligence is to be credited for the quite respectable image and caliber of Ghanaian soccer among the comity of global soccer powers and soccer-superpower nations.
The last Sports Minister before Mr. Lante Vanderpuye was appointed to the ministry was fervidly locked in a cynical dispute over whether our soccer players deserved the $10,000, or so, bonuses that they had been contractually promised anytime that they clinched a victory in the global arena while representing our beloved nation. I believe there was a dollar-sum dichotomy in bonuses between matches played on the home front and abroad. And also smaller bonuses for selected players who did not get to play in some particular matches. I am here talking about players of the Black Stars, of course. And I even remember once writing an article when the extant sports minister cynically sought to have the bonuses of the Stars players slashed by 50-percent, on grounds of budget constraints, and questioning whether the sports minister was also going to submit to having his salary and perks slashed by half.
The fact of the matter is that there is this satanic spirit of greed on the part of politicians appointed to the Sports Ministry which is corrosively militating against any opportunity to allow the country’s level of soccer advance towards the apex of the global soccer community. And I really don’t know the qualifications that a cutthroat Ghanaian politician, particularly one belonging to the National Democratic Congress, needs to have in order to be appointed to the post of Sports Minister. All I remember presently is that when Ms. Akua Sena Dansua was transferred from the Ministry of Sports to the Tourism Ministry, the woman who currently represents Ghana as its chief diplomat in Germany bitterly fought against the move albeit to no avail. Ms. Dansua would also complain to President John Evans Atta-Mills, late, that she felt herself to have been harshly punished. For whatever reasons such punishment was meted Ms. Dansua were never clearly, or specifically, articulated by the self-alleged victim.
In my personal playbook, however, I never found anything indicative of vindictiveness against the complainant except what clearly appeared to be a purely administrative decision on the part of President Mills. What became strikingly clear to me from Ms. Dansua’s plaint, was the glaring fact that for many an NDC appointee to the Ministry of Sports, the job was all about scamming our players and systematically thwarting our chances, as a nation, for prime coveted laurels on the continental and global stages. And I am also well past a half-century old, as of this writing, and sincerely do not recall when Ms. Dansua played any significant role in Ghanaian soccer or sports, in general, on the global stage. May I therefore apologetically suggest that, perhaps, our current Ambassador to Germany was afforded a sound “groping” before she was ceded charge of the Sports Ministry at the time.
And now comes some insufferably imperious chap by the name of Vincent Oppong-Asamoah, an apparently blowhard Ministry of Sports second-bananas to Nii Lante Vanderpuye, swearing and vowing to show the Ghana Football Association’s elected officials “where power lies.” No such threat could be more scandalous (See “We Will Show GFA Real Power After December Elections – Minister” Sportsworldghana.com / Ghanaweb.com 10/8/16). And the reason? Allegedly because some GFA officials have presumed to impugn the competence and credibility of Mr. Oppong-Asamoah’s boss. I mean, we are talking about the same self-serving former Deputy Local Government and Rural Development Minister who single-mindedly attempted to stall the flood-preventing bulldozing of some homes illegally constructed in the path of waterways in the Greater-Accra Metropolitan Area, primarily because allowing the other Vanderpuije, the Mayor of Accra, to better protect Ghanaian lives and property could cost the Odododiodio Constituency street toughie his seat and oversized check as a parliamentarian!
Mr. Oppong-Asamoah, you really want to know where real power lies? Then, young man, let me tell you: Real power lies with the hardworking and deservedly well-salaried Black Stars players like Mr. Asamoah Gyan, and not lavishly suited and overly dressed and useless manikins like you! And just what are you implying would happen to the GFA operatives after the December 7 elections? Come on, young man, don’t push your luck.
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