Help
reduce rumour mongering in sports - Minister
Paramount
signs ¢1.5bn agreement with Kotoko
Kotoko
refutes Minister's claim
Kessie
refutes Kotoko allegations
Constituting
a winsome national team
Help reduce
rumour mongering in sports - Minister
Accra (Greater Accra)
06 November 2002 - Edward Osei-Kwaku, Minister of Youth and Sports has urged
the press and the National Sports Council (NSC) to collaborate in a mutually beneficial
partnership to reduce the high incidences of rumour mongering associated with
sports in Ghana.
Speaking at his maiden
NSC monthly meet the press series in Accra on Tuesday, the Minister said it is
the aspiration of his ministry to see to it that the country makes great
strides in sports internationally.
He said even though
his ministry has good intentions, it is constrained by inadequate funding to
carry through most of its sports development programmes hence the need for
private sponsorship in sports. "Presently
the sports ministry is one of the least resourced with an annual budget of ¢23bn of which three-quarters goes into
personal emoluments leaving us with virtually nothing to push our developmental
projects.
"That is why the
monthly press conference has come at a good time since it would enable
potential investors to go into sports. The minister at the same function
received a report of the Committee on Sports Development in Ghana, set up after
the country's disastrous outing in the last Commonwealth Games where she won
only one bronze medal.
Osei-Kwaku said he is
aware that sports, especially football is dear to the hearts of Ghanaians but
regretted that soon after independence the country's fortunes have taken a
downward trend.. He said for the past 20 years no major sporting infrastructure
has been contracted to ensure that our athletes' compete favourably
internationally hence "I do not blame any of our athletes if they travel
and come back empty handed"
Presenting the report,
Joe Aggrey, Deputy Sports Minister said the 15-man committee exploited ways by
which Ghana Sports would be brought back from near total collapse to be in line
with our national aspirations. He said before coming up with its report the
committee met with all stakeholders in sports and expressed the hope that the
report would lay a proper foundation on which future sports development in
Ghana would be built upon. Also present at the meeting was B.T. Baba President
of the Ghana Olympics Committee.
GRi…/
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Paramount
signs ¢1.5bn agreement with Kotoko
Accra (Greater Accra)
06 November 2002 - Paramount Distilleries Limited on Tuesday, signed a five-year
agreement worth 1.5 billion cedis with Kumasi Asante Kotoko to market two new
products, London Dry Gin and Power Gin Bitters with the logo of the club.
Peter Wiafe Pepera,
Managing Director of the company said his company, as the producers of Ghana's
best alcoholic brands, recognises the need to support sports and with soccer as
the largest crowd puller in the country, a relationship with Kotoko is matter
of course.
He said the company
has noted with satisfaction structures put in place by the current management
of Kotoko which have resulted in the successes of the club, in Africa this
year, hence the need to enter into the agreement, he stressed.
Pepera said the new
deal with Kotoko is the beginning of the company's support for Ghana
football and in the near future his company would go into agreements with other
premier clubs in the ,country.
He called on
football-loving fans, especially Kotoko supporters, to patronise the products
so that they can raise money to fund the club. The company also presented a
cheque for 50 million cedis to the club as its contribution to the club's
African Cup Winners Cup campaign.
Herbert Mensah, Chief
Executive of Kotoko, who received the cheque, thanked the company for its kind gesture and called on other
corporate bodies and institutions ,to donate generously to the club to enable
it realise its dream of winning the Cup
Winners Cup for the first time.
GRi…/
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Kotoko
refutes Minister's claim
Accra (Greater Accra)
06 November 2002 - The management of Kumasi Asante Kotoko has refuted allegations
made by Edward Osei Kwaku, Minister of Youth and Sports on Adom FM on Monday 4 November
to the effect that the club refused to use the Presidential Jet for their trip
to Congo for their African Cup Winners Cup second leg match.
Kwame Amoah Bosompem,
Accra Representative of the club, said in Accra on Tuesday that Kotoko wrote to
the Minister on 26 October asking him to request the presidency to release the
Jet for their trip to Congo, but no response was received.
"With no response
in sight from the Minster, Kotoko took pains to contact its sources at the
Office of the Chief of Staff and the Ghana Air Force and we were informed that
even though the Presidency was ready to release the aircraft, there was a
problem with the radar of the plane and thus it was risky to travel with it to
Congo".
Based on this, he said
the club made its own arrangement with Ethiopian Airlines and traveled the long
journey through Addis Ababa to Brazzaville.
On the club's present
request for the jet, he said the Minister's assertion that the Chief of Staff
informed Kotoko that it would not be possible to release the Folker 28
Presidential jet but rather the Folker 27, is a surprises to the club.
"This is news to
us. As far as we are concerned Kotoko, wrote to the Minister of Youth and
Sports and we expect him to officially respond to us. We have not been in communication with the Chief of Staff even
though we copied him of the letter as a matter of courtesy. To therefore feed
the media with information which has not been made available to Kotoko is very unfortunate",
Bosompem said.
He said though the
club has not received any response from the Minster on their request, the
club can't use the Fokker 27 aircraft because their safety cannot be
guaranteed since authentic information from the Ghana Airforce indicated that
the two Fokker planes are
all well overdue for maintenance.
"We put in a
specific request for the Fokker 28 aircraft and we await the Ministry's
response. Until then we cannot make an informed statement on the Minister's
scattered responses in the media", he stressed.
GRi…/
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Kessie
refutes Kotoko allegations
Obuasi (Ashanti
Region) 05 November 2002 - Guss Kessie, Acting Managing Director of
Obuasi Goldfields
Sport Club has stated categorically that Goldfields supporters never molested
Kotoko officials and players during the first round match at the Len Clay
Stadium as being alleged by Mohammed Haruna Public Relations Officer (PRO) of
Kotoko.
Reacting to Haruna's
allegation published in the Graphic Sports of Tuesday at a press briefing at
the Len Clay Stadium, Kessie stated that the first round encounter was
incident-free and therefore it is surprising that the PRO has said "it is
Goldfields' treatment of Kotoko players and officials in the first round match at
Obuasi which created that reaction."
"I stand here to
say without contradiction of any sort that the first round match was
incident-free and not even the hell of a blade of grass was touched."
The Acting Managing
Director observed that the fact that no match commissioner's report nor that of
the referee and the sport-writers report mentioned any problem of any sort on
that afternoon at Obuasi attest to the truth that the first round match was
incident-free.
Kessie lamented that
"so it was the result of what happened in the first round that has led to
Goldfields coach arrested and imprisoned for over 20 minutes, players of
Goldfields assaulted, the club's equipment stolen, club officials beaten up and
insulted and a soccer fan left dead?"
He expressed bitterness
of Haruna's allegations and said "this is the kind of the so called club
executives who have been lying between their teeth and misleading spectators
and sports enthusiasts to the conclusion of what we saw last Sunday."
Kessie was of the view
that because Goldfields do not have large followers to diffuse any lies peddled
against them, people can conjure any bad thing and motives about them.
The Acting Managing
Director said it was quite strange for Haruna to fathom such an excuse when a
day before the match the Ashanti Goldfields Company (AGC) had put their Anyinam
Club facilities at their disposal for their fund-raising programme and in some
cases we contributed cash towards it. "Is that how you repay
kindness?" Kessie asked.
He stressed that the
time has come to call a spade, a spade and that those who are always scheming
and lying should be told in plain language that, "there is no future for
them in Ghana football." Asked whether Goldfields will retaliate or not,
Kessie said Goldfields will always uphold to the rule of law as far as Ghana
football is concerned.
GRi…/
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Constituting
a winsome national team
By Caesar Abagali)
Accra (Greater Accra)
06 November 2002 - It is a clear fact that Ghana abounds in talents and
potentials particularly in the game of soccer waiting to be harnessed. However,
the process of constituting a winnable select side capable of achieving our
objectives has been the main problem in Ghana. The objectives include emerging
as a force in African football by winning the continental trophy and pushing on
to participate in the World Cup.
These objectives have
eluded Ghana for some time now leaving the country with only bygone memories of
glorious days, which cannot continue to sustain our image in the face of the
emerging reality. Those glorious days would not sustain the country because
arguably they are days when many African countries were yet to take football
seriously and football itself was not based on commercial calculations being
only for the purposes of entertainment. The current reality of football
dynamics makes it a scientific commercial activity calling for a high
organisational base and financial capital outlay.
These qualities and
necessary requirements separate countries like Ghana from the high achievers
like Senegal, Cameron and South Africa. Again, the other existing reality is
the appreciation of the fact that one has problems.
Only then would one
begin to tackle these problems and finding solutions to them. This is what is
lacking in our football in the country. When all these have been put in place,
the core questions remain how to constitute a national team capable of emerging
as number one in the continent.
Constituting a
national team has not been an easy task in Ghana. At the heart of our football
success is therefore the ability to pick our players, prepare them adequately
and organise them for various competitions. It is common knowledge in Ghana
that player selection is not flawless as it is beset with many irrelevant
extraneous factors.
Corruption, which is a
canker in our society, has entered into the fabric of football making it almost
impossible for Ghana to reregister its recognition in world soccer. It is
therefore, not uncommon for coaches to select players based on the following
dangerous criteria:
* Players are selected
according to who belongs to the club of the coach's own choice or personal
relations with the coach.
* Players are selected
depending on their willingness to share their remuneration with coaches or by
outright bribery of the coach concerned.
* Players are selected
from specific clubs like Hearts, Kotoko and Gold Fields. These clubs are
influential due to their proximity in sports authorities or political power.
Their players therefore, get the first option of selection to the national team
even though they may not be the best players meriting selection.
* Players are selected
depending on their "connections" and kinship.
* Players are selected
with an eye in their transfer purse.
* Finally, some
players are selected based on their ability to get publicised by the press for
various reasons, some of which may not be commendable.
This mischief runs
through all our selection efforts since time immemorial. Against this
background, it is no wonder that Ghana football is found where it is- at the
bottom rungs of world football classifications. To tackle player selection
problems in Ghana would therefore require a critical appreciation of this
dangerous veto points.
In designing a
solution to the problem of player selection in the country at the national
level, we must design strategies to get round them. It is recommended that a
committee system of selection is preferable.
Again, zoning the
country for the purposes of selection should be inevitable. The reason being
that a vast potential of the country is left out in the consideration for
selection. The zoning system would prevent this.
Before the assigned
coach begins to make his final selection, a panel of coaches should bring
together a generally selected side from all zones, which should then be taken
through a rigorous selection exercise from which a standing team would be
selected and made available to the national coach.
The process should be
as transparent and as corrupting free as possible, devoid all partisan
sentiments. Only then should a coach be given the discretion to pick from such
a side.
A country like Brazil
that has succeeded goes through similar processes. At a certain level of this
process, our dear and professional foreign players would then be brought in to
make the process complete.
The issue of foreign
players, vis-à-vis local players have been very topical in our football
arrangements. In the process of selection of players for a national team, it is
important to understand that it is irrelevant whether one is a foreign or local
player. What is relevant is one's current performance as defined by a lay down
criteria already in place and as part of the process or policy.
It must be emphasised
that the relationship between foreign players and their local counterparts has
been a very incoherent, irrelevant, unnecessary and vexatious, which would not
arise if the right policy is place. For there is no logical argument, which can
be made that a local player is necessarily bad compared to the foreign player
or vice versa. The only important issue is the players' utility at a particular
time and context.
Ghana would be better
off dropping all biases on this matter. Admittedly, a foreign player may be
more experienced than the local player but it need not necessarily be so.
In fact, it has not
been so in many instances. The inherent contradiction of this argument does not
corroborate the sentiments. Ghana is therefore, better off abandoning the
argument and pushing on purely on the basis of needs relevance and policies.
Player selection in Ghana therefore is very significant and at the heart of the
priority of our sports policies and pre-occupation of the sports authorities
would be the characterization of player selection as one key area to focus
attention.
When all else have
been put in place, it is this important element, which would seal the deal. It
is therefore an area needing urgent attention and the Ministry of Youth and
Sports as a matter of priority must ensure that the proper mechanisms are in
place to eliminate the problems already indicated. This way Ghana can embark on
a process of progress leading to a winsome national team.
GRi…/
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