Kweku Baako Jnr., Editor-in-Chief of the New Crusading Guide, has described any person who fails to pick lessons from the humiliation that the national team, the Black Stars and the country's Football administrators experienced at the 2014 FIFA World Cup as a "courageous fool."
Addressing some pertinent issues regarding Ghana's participation at the on-going 2015 African Cup of Nations onPeaceFM's flagship programme, "Kokrokoo", Kweku Baako said he seriously expects the football authorities and the Ministry of Sports, under the leadership of the Hon. Mahama Ayariga, to learn from the embarrassment suffered by the Black Stars at the FIFA World Cup tournament held in Brazil.
In what will go down as a blot on the country's sporting image, angry Black Stars players vowed to honour travel arrangements for their final group game against Portugal. The playersthreatened to boycott the trip to Marceo protesting the non-payment of allowances and appearance fees during the football wembley in Brazil.
The situation was so volatile that President John Dramani Mahama had to personally intervene. He reportedly spoke to the players via the phone of FA Chairman Kwasi Nyantakyi before calm was restored in the camp.
Matters came to a head when AC Milan star Sulley Muntari and Shalke 04 playmaker Kevin Prince Boateng were sacked from the team by head coach James Kwasi Appiah. The coach and management of the team felt the continuous stay of the two stars in the camp could be a distraction to the team after they were said to have been embroiled in extreme indiscipline and involved in other troublesome acts at the teams' camp.
As a result, President John Mahama set up a Presidential Commission to probe Ghana’s disastrous Brazil 2014 campaign and furnish him with the report; the content of which is yet to be known.
In light of the Brazil debacle, many football pundits, were anxiously looking forward to the announcement of the National team’s budget for this year’s Africa’s elite football competition hoping the current Sports Minister, Mahama Ayariga and the GFA will take a cue from the criticisms and accusations that were hurled at the former Sports Minister, Elvis Afriyie Ankrah.
But the current Sports Ministry has also failed to go by the normal routine of publicizing the Black Stars budget by refusing to release the budget for this year's AFCON, though the team has qualified for the next stage of the tournament; raising talks of mischief among some football enthusiasts.
Speaking to host Kwami Sefa Kayi, Kweku Baako bemoaned the Sports Ministry's inability to make available the budget for this year's AFCON, wondering what was so special about the budget that it has compelled the Ministry to keep its cards to its chest.
He noted that a person has to be "such a courageous fool to say that against the backdrop of the Brazilian saga which has not even been finally resolved", one will seek to court unnecessary media attention or dabble in any form of needless controversy.
Kweku Baako therefore wants the Ministry to the transparent and come clear on the budget for the 2015 AFCON. |
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