GPL player writes: The Life of a local based Player - Part 2

Local based players are motivated intrinsically when they see their pictures at the back pages of various newspapers, where sports news are captioned, with previews to weekend round of games to the Ghana premier league.

These on the other hand pushes them to work hard and bring o best from them with the perception that radio and TV stations will seek their audience through interviews before the GPL games and they voices will be heard around the country.

Sports Journalism on the GPL has been outstanding, as many sports journalists have been professional and productive with coverage, statistics and factual information about players. Their works become complete due to the hard work of a local based player who is consistent with his performance but takes a low salary at the end of a month.

A small number of these Journalists takes money from these local based players as “soli”, so they can advertise them whenever they get the opportunity to give commentary in their games or during their sports shows.

When these” soli”stop coming, these players now turn to become ungrateful to their pay masters forgetting that the money comes ones in four months and is even small because,debts acquired need to be settled. At this point players are ridiculed and all sort of lies are peddled against them which are false and baseless.

A local based player wants the best for his family and his community one day. The monies they take as salaries and signing on fees are small which makes it difficult for them to make the world a comfortable place for themselves and love ones. How a local based players wish is to enroll his children in good schools and also grow up in good environments.

Where they can take their families to vacation outside the country during the off season and to the malls for shopping during Easter, Christmas, and other Islamic festivities. All these concepts never turns out to become a reality but rather, ending up in abusive relationship and marriages, because spouses think players spend money on mistresses outside the marriage.

In 2012 when I enrolled and got admitted to do my bachelors degree in the University of Education Winneba, I met 6 players who have tasted the Ghana Premier league who where fresh students like myself and have gained admission.

The summary of my interactions with them all ended with a view that, the money they receive as salaries were small, in addition these, it does not come on time and they are therefore scared for their future if they continue to play the league without preparing ground for their future.

A small number of local based players can boast of a house or a car as a property or an asset playing in GPL. Even with this, they earned it because they had a time with the senior national team, the black stars and took home per Diem’s, winning bonuses and appearance fees in tournament they participated.

It is not surprising that most local based players have exhausted their rents and always have to play the mouse and cat games with landlords when it comes to payments of utilities.

If salaries are good in Ghana Premier league, we will not lose our stars to countries like Tanzania, Zambia, Eithopia, Congo DR, Guinea, Myanmar, Pakistan,Togo etc all in the name of greener pastures.

At least our local stars are assured in these countries, accommodation, feeding and a car in addition to to their monthly salaries which is as low as 400,500 or 600 dollars.

They will in addition to all these, gracefully take advantage when the opportunity comes for them to naturalize and play for these countries. This is because they feel more secured with their future in another country than their their homeland.

My name is Abel Manomey and a local based player deserves the best in his homeland