By Nathaniel Nartey
Former Minister of Youth and Sports Edwin Nii Lante Vanderpuye has questioned what it means to have “Professional Football ” inculcated into Ghana’s Local League. According to him, the attempts to introduce professionalism into football in the country has backfired because those involved only focused on the management style, leaving other crucial aspects to perish. He made the point on GTV Sports+ Thursday, February 17, 2022 on 2nd edition of the special program (Saving Our Passion).
“When we were talking about turning professional we were just looking at the management style of the teams therefore people thought it’s all about the way of managing our Clubs and recruiting players, but did it affect our technical ability? Did professionalism bring in its wake infrastructure improvements, improvements in human resources capacity and improvement in management of players. What is professional about us now, is it now the same thing we are seeing?” he questioned.
The veteran sports journalist who used to run football commentary in his days as a staff of GBC used the situation at some European football teams to explain what a professional football club looks like and how it operates.
“At Chelsea fc, (owner) Roman Abrahimovic will employ you, do this for me and if you are not doing it well, he fires you. Everyone has his terms of reference and the club is run like a corporate entity. There is an organogram and everyone is given a Key Performance Indicator, if you do not meet it, you are maintained or sacked. Who is doing that in Asante Kotoko, Hearts of Oak or King Faisal”
He says “one of the key indicators for running professional football is for every club to have a nursery site, do we have it?”.
Mr Vanderpuye believes professionalism in Ghanaian football is only a mirage whose practicability will be near impossible.
