The 2024 flagbearer of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), John Dramani Mahama has the Black Stars on his radar as he seeks a comeback over the administration of the affairs of Ghana.
He is capitalizing on the shabby state of the Black Stars which is a major concern to most Ghanaians in the course of his ongoing campaign dubbed “Building Ghana Tour” which has now reached Bongo in the Upper East Region.
In his interaction with the folks of the community, the former President characterized the performance of the team at the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) tournament as abysmal and disastrous.
“We performed abysmally, disastrously and we have performed abysmally because we are not growing our football.”
His solution to the ailing team is to make it home-grown through the reintroduction of colts.
“We will build the new Black Stars based on the homegrown players who have trained together for a long time and have worked together as a team.”
“Before we used to have the Colts and every district used to organize its Colts’ league and they picked the promising players from there. We used to have the academicals where the schools played against each other and we picked the promising players from there before we come to U-17 and then all the other age groups.
“Unfortunately, all that has collapsed and so we are going to work with the Football Association to start catching them young so that we can train them and give them to local teams to get experience.”
The senior national team failed to win any of their three group games in the AFCON exiting with two points after drawing two games and losing one.
The results cost Chris Hughton his role as the head coach with the Ghana Football Association (GFA) immediately constituting a committee to scout for a new coach.
Meanwhile, the football fraternity has organized a protest against the FA and the Ministry of Youth and Sports in demand for a reduction in budgetary allocation to the senior national team for tournaments, a review of player selection criteria and concerns about the dedication from the FA.
