What is it with African football?

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Why is it that after getting to the top of African football, national teams relax and loose their focus? It’s as if we do not understand the concept of success being NEVER ENDING. To us, success is a destination and once we get there we drop everything and start all over again. How dumb can we get? Look at the state of Nigerian and Senegalese football? After conquering Africa and being on top for so long, mismanagement and self conceitedness has rendered them both old horses - Have Been’s. Senegalese football after dominating Africa and being a force in world football, decided to be consistent with African football traditions, by taking their foot off the gas and self destruct, hence the state of Senegalese football now.

Cameroon is now licking old wounds and trying hard to bring the state of their football management in order. We are all also aware of how South Africa, are desperately trying to get back on their feet by spend obscene amounts of dollars in coaches and putting together a national team that once dominated the continent but has been suffering from years of neglect and rot. I would have thought Ghana would know better as we have already experienced the bitter taste of falling off the super power pedestal for so long. We were once giants of African football and for some 20 years remained in the obscurity; far removed from African elite nations in football, we were for so long labelled the old horses. And just when we have lifted ourselves up and climbed to the top of African football, rubbing shoulders with the big boys of the continent, we decide to do what Africans do best - loose focus, play politics and self destruct.

Regarding what is happening, i do not blame coach Le Roy, I believe this rests right at the doorstep of the GFA. They’ve allowed the usual suspects (personal ambitions, politics, mismanagement, corruption and greed) to get the better of them. Instead of fighting to keep a decent coach and his team they were fighting to keep their positions to protect their dubious administrative dealings by fighting tooth and nail to stay on and not got through an election.

The question is not about Claude Le Roy’s capacity, for his credentials do speak for themselves. To be honest I am personally not exactly a big fan of Claude Le Roy’s tactics but that’s not the issue here so I am not about to digress. The question is about continuity and consistency, and I do believe in continuity considering that the world cup is only 2 years away; after all, the GFA have already announced their intentions of renewing his contract until the world cup, sighting consistency and also their confidence in him, they also expressed their satisfaction with his work so far. So what delayed the signing of the contract?

Instead of trying hard to focus on the World Cup, they are unwilling to renew the contract of our trainer thereby losing a good coach in Claude Le Roy. Why? In the name of cost cutting, we have not been able to face a testing team for awhile now; we have played Mexico twice and Australia again and again as if they are the only teams in the world available to play a friendly. We are not able to get down working hard at making sure we pitch teams that can test our boys.

Coming back to the issue of Claude Le Roy, is this really the time to tinker with the coaching team? This is not just about sheer short-sightedness but it’s about stupidity, greed and the absolute lack of common sense. This Nyantekyi guy never fails to astonish me; he is the GFA chairman but acts like he is rather part of the back room staff. Don’t Ghanaians think we need a statement from the GFA? Don’t we think the GFA have to make a public statement giving reasons for the departure of Claude Le Roy?

If it’s a question of trust, I believe that Claude had every right to look for jobs if indeed he had only a month left on his contract, but he categorically denies applying for the South African job anyway. But supposing he did, what is really wrong with that? I believe it is fair for a coach to try his luck elsewhere just in case his contract is not renewed especially when he hasn’t actually signed anything. Everyone knows that a coach’s job is never guaranteed and in fact there are no guarantees in football management. You’re here today and gone tomorrow. So you have to look after number one - which of course, is yourself.

I think this whole fiasco exposes the GFA rather than Claude Le Roy. Claude Le Roy hinted that his job had been made untenable with the loss of his trainer and rightly so because coaches are used to working with people they trust and can work with. So if you tamper with your coaching team then that’s pretty much it!!! The GFA had somehow decided not to renew his contract and had no one else lined up either.

I am disappointed with the GFA but then again saying that will be an understatement. The same GFA has again failed to act when it really matters. This is the same GFA team who agreed to send a tired Black Stars team to Saudi Arabia to be hammered 5-0 after which they used logistics as their excuse? The same people failed to contact CAF after the 2006 African cup to appeal the suspension meted out to Laryea Kingston. They then alleged that there was no fax machine, email or phone to call CAF immediately after the match to appeal, so when their appeal finally got through to CAF almost a week later, it was too late for CAF to consider their appeal. Being as gullible (or is it forgiving?) as we are, we took that as a good excuse and let this obvious demonstration of administrative incompetence slide.

So what have they got to say now? Are they going to blame Claude Le Roy for their own mismanagement? If indeed they wanted to renew a contract why did they have to wait so long to sign contracts when they had already announced that they were happy for him to continue? What’s going on? What excuse this time then? Was it a problematic fax machine or an email server or is it because of the shortage of BIC pens these days?

I think typical of most African FAs, the best thing to do is to reshuffle after a success. It is rather unfortunate but this is what works in Africa, people become successful overnight and then suddenly become arrogant, corky and self conceited. This is what the canker that has eaten into African football. It’s like that all over the continent. We lack that sense of continuity, that ambition to continue winning, working hard, the desire to improve even when we are at the top. Whenever we get to the top we lack the zeal to hold on, so i think it’s at that time that various countries should be thinking of bringing in new blood - people who also want to make their mark.

I am not a pessimist, but i fear that Ghana football may be heading for a dip, the big dip! We obviously think that we have reached the top already, clearly we haven’t learnt any lessons from our past mistakes and we are once again sitting down, waiting for the fall so that we can work our way back up again which is what most African countries do. With the talent we’ve got now, that would be unfortunate but I believe we are going the same direction South Africa, Senegal and, Nigeria, have gone. It is a cycle, a tradition, a way of thinking. We are all the same; we only wake up when we are down. At a time when we are on top of Africa, one would have thought that the GFA would be looking at ways of strengthening and focusing the management, the technical bench and the squad so that we can make a good impression at the biggest stage in world football.

Oh no, we are doing what African football associations have always done: Our fingers are firmly on the self destruct button, ready to explode into oblivion AGAIN.