GFA Short-lists Four

The Ghana Football Association (GFA) has short-listed four people for final selection of Black Stars substantive coach.
The four are Coach Afranie, Abdul Razak (pictured), Buchard Zeise, and a Portuguese Manuel Concalves Gomes. The four coaches will face the FA’s interview panel from January 31 to February 3.

There are twelve men in the initial race. The biggest casualties are Mohammed Polo and Dutchman Willem Leisus.

FA boss Ben Koufie said the four were chosen after a thorough assessment of all 15 applications. He said the coaches’ background, their experience and achievements were the criteria used in drawing up the short list.

Now the FA says it would be guided by similar principles in deciding whether acting coach E. K Afranie gets the job on a substantive basis or if a new man is put in charge.

“We want someone with some experience on the African scene, someone who knows the ins and outs of coaching”, Mr. Koufie said.

The pedigree of the four applicants who would be interviewed makes the FA’s task of choosing one difficult. All four have CV’s that many analysts say makes them ideal coaches for the Black Stars.

E.K Afranie has handled Ghana at every level of football, emerging with credits most of the time. He was called in as care taker coach when Yugoslav Milan Zivadinovic deserted post last year and has made a descent job of that so far. In the only real competitive game he took charge of, he guided the Black Stars to a 4-2 win over Rwanda. It was a result that brought Ghana back on track in the African Nations Cup after the team had faltered in the first game against Uganda.

Afranie was also in charge when Ghana’s U-20 side placed second behind Brazil at the FIFA World Youth Cup in Argentina two years ago.

The other local coach in reckoning is 1978 African player of the year Abdul Razak who has honed his coaching skills in the West Africa sub region with impressive spells in Mali and Benin where he won three championship medals.

With the FA’s declared stance that it wants a foreign coach however, the two would be fighting against the odds. The smart talk now is that the FA would chose between German Burkhard Ziese and Portuguese Manuel Concalves Gomes.

Both men have considerable experience of the African scene. Ziese in particularly knows Ghana fairly well after a hugely successful spell in 1991 when he led the Black Stars to African Nations Cup qualification after almost twelve years in the cold. His other spell in Africa was however a disaster with Zambia where he was accused of being a racist after calling Zambian players “bushmen” at the 1998 African Cup of Nations.

It was the same championships that shot Manuel Gomes to continental fame in Africa after he led Angola to a relatively good show there. With the backing of official kit sponsors L-Sporto, he is many people’s early favourite for the job.

The FA has stated on several occasions it’s preference for a foreign coach but it was not ref on numerous occasions indicated its preference for a foreign coach. But this was not reflected in the shortlist. Mr. Ben Koufie explained that the FA was solely interested in choosing the best out of the lot, hence, the parity in the number of expatriate coaches as against the local coaches.