Ghana Football Association apologises for team’s abysmal performance

Accra, Feb 16 (IANS) Ghana will strengthen the capacity of the technical crew of the Black Stars, its senior national football team, to win future trophies, Kwasi Nyantakyi, president of the Ghana Football Association (GFA), said here.

Ghana was touted as one of the favourites to win the just-ended African Cup of Nations (AFCON) tourney held in South Africa, reports Xinhua.

But the team broke many Ghanaian hearts after finishing fourth, a development that angered football fans who called for the head of Kwesi Appiah, head coach of the Black Stars, blamed for the team’s abysmal performance.

However, after a crunch meeting Friday to review the performance of the national team, the executive committee of the GFA agreed to maintain the technical angle of the team and strengthen its capacity to win future major international competitions.

“The technical team headed by the head coach did a commendable job, considering that this was his (Appiah) first outing as head coach in terms of this competition,” Nyantakyi said at a press conference.

“However, we thought that the team deserves to do better. So we are looking at how to strengthen the capacity of our technical team so that it will bring them to the level that will enable them to do better at subsequent competitions,” he said.

According to the GFA president, the Black Stars team, which was full of youthful talents, holds a huge potential for the future.

“We are very hopeful that if we nurture the qualities that were in this team, that is team unity, togetherness and strong forms of friendship among the players, we will be able to build a better team that will make us proud in the next edition of the nation’s cup,” he said, while rendering an unqualified apology for not winning the trophy.

Over the past five years, Ghana has not been able to progress after winning five matches in the African Cup of Nations, a situation which Nyantakyi said raised a bit psychological issue, which “we think should be of interest to researchers”.

“We also will take it up with the appropriate experts and unravel the myths surrounding this performance,” he said.

Appiah, on behalf of the players and technical team, rendered an unqualified apology to Ghanaian football fans for the team’s lackadaisical performance in the South Africa competition. He said his outfit had learnt useful lessons at the tournament and believed it would serve as a guide for them in upcoming matches.

“My team has got future,” he said, adding that his team would do everything humanly possible to qualify for the World Cup to be staged in Brazil next year.

Ghana is ranked second-best football team in Africa and lies in 19th in the February edition of the FIFA World Rankings released Thursday.

Ghana will play Sudan in a Brazil 2014 World Cup qualification next month.

IANS 2013-02-16 18:26:01