Two years later, Ghana football is frozen again. It’s a very different place, however, with hope thriving where horror once reigned, and despair overcome by the desire to expel the evils of ‘Number 12’, the corruption exposé that rocked and cleansed our game this day in 2018.
The first anniversary wasn’t so merry, as the Normalization Committee (NC) — set up by FIFA, football’s global governing body, to lay the foundations for a better future of the national game — was still busy with its work, much of it hush-hush, and little of it inspiring. A second extension of the NC’s mandate would be required before its job was finally done, culminating in the election of new Ghana Football Association executives.
The biggest of those was Kurt Okraku, and he rode to the FA’s presidency — after three rounds of voting in October 2019 — on a wave of change, flying a two-faced flag of ‘igniting passion’ and ‘creating wealth’. Eight months in, we’ve certainly felt plenty of the former. The current Ghana Premier League season, before it was abruptly halted — like other championships around the world — by the ongoing coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, runs high on raw passion.
Some of that extra buzz springs from the absence of regular league football since the immediate aftermath of ‘Number 12’, but it’s hard not to see how much of that adrenaline has been injected by Okraku and the popular #BringBackTheLove campaign his FA has championed. Some of that affection has spilled onto the national teams, although strides are still small and gains little on that front. The communications department, sparkling at the touch of the excellent Henry Asante Twum’s wand, gets applause aplenty for that.
But, of course, Okraku is counting on more than just public goodwill to improve Ghana’s international fortunes — they haven’t been great of late, have they? — which is why he has overhauled the various teams’ technical staff, spreading fresh coaching appointments all around at the beginning of the year. For the cumulative effect of such an upgrade, do wait until the major competitions come around.
Then there is the other thing he promised: wealth, and lots of it. Thus far, little has been seen but that is quite understandable — pardonable, even — as the first year of this regime is still rolling out, and structures are being erected to ensure the FA’s revenue seeps through all cracks to lubricate the entirety of the Ghanaian game. Just how well that is done, when the cash begins to flow in thick and fast, should soon play out. Right now, there just isn’t enough money in the system, a problem illustrated so vividly and painfully in the wake of COVID-19.
Finally, let’s face the demons exposed by Anas Aremeyaw Anas’ ‘Number 12’.
Oh, wait . . . you thought they were banished?
Well, maybe the ‘possessed’ were, but not the demons — bribery and greed — themselves. That, ultimately, would be the biggest test of this FA administration – and, indeed, of any after it — and the rod with which the reconstruction of Ghana football, brick-by-brick and bonded by the mortar of integrity, should be guided.
It is early days yet, but — from June 6, 2018, at least — we’ve come far.
NY Frimpong — Daily Mail GH
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