Former Youth and Sports Minister Nii Lante Vanderpuye claims Ghana’s national teams are failing owing to the Ghana Football Association’s ‘lazy cow-dung mentality.
Speaking to Citi TV in Accra, the veteran sports writer and football administrator predicted that performances would continue to deteriorate until the GFA focused on talent development.
Former Youth and Sports Minister, Nii Lante Vanderpuye, says Ghana’s national teams are underperforming due to a ‘lazy cow-dung’ approach adopted by the Ghana Football Association
Speaking to Accra-based Citi TV, the former sports journalist and football administrator, said results will continue to decay until the GFA focuses on talent development.
“We continue to live on past glories, and we are suffering,” he told Citi TV.
“We are doing the same thing, the cow-dung management style. We wait, and when there’s a tournament or qualifying series coming up, then we assemble players and play. Possibly, sometimes we qualify and say, Oh, we are doing good.”
“It doesn’t work like that. Look at the 2006 World Cup team. Those players were nurtured and developed from U-17, U-20, Meteors, all the way to the Black Stars.”
Ghana’s national football teams have failed to compete at all levels since the year 2020.
The Black Meteors were eliminated from the Under 23 AFCON in Morocco in June, failing to qualify for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
Two weeks later, the Black Satellites were eliminated in the group stage of the WAFU Zone B competition in Ivory Coast. That setback was preceded by another dreadful performance in the Under 20 AFCON Qualifiers, in which the reigning champions failed to qualify for the tournament. Abdul Karim Zito, the team’s head coach, was later shifted to the Black Starlets.
The Starlets had failed to qualify for the Under 17 AFCON despite holding the qualifiers in Cape Coast prior to Karim Zito’s arrival.
Ghana was eliminated from the 2023 CHAN competition following a 2-0 loss against Niger.
The senior national team, the Black Stars, also exited the group stage of AFCON 2021 and the FIFA World Cup in 2022, respectively.
