By: Manasseh Awuni Azure
I never watched Abedi Ayew Pele play football. When my eyes opened and I started following football, the man considered Ghana’s greatest footballer had retired. I have only read about him and seen bits and pieces of his exploits on YouTube, so permit me to speak to what I know.
Since I started following the Black Stars, Samuel Osei Kuffour has stood out as my all-time favourite. When his career peaked at FC Bayern München, his commitment to the Black Stars was matchless. He was flying at club level but played for Ghana as if his life depended on the Black Stars.
Towards the end of his career, however, Ghana’s FA treated Kuffour in a way that continues to hurt me. He was expelled from the African Cup of Nations tournament in Mali in 2002 when he complained about the ill-treatment meted out to the team.
“Nobody was able to tell them that what they were doing was wrong, and I was so glad that the late Ben Kofi apologised to me after the competition,” Kuffour said in 2020.
“When he was launching his book, I was there, and he told me he was sorry. At my mother’s funeral, he also apologised and said the way I was sacked from the camp was wrong,” he said on GTV.
And his sidelining after a mistaken back pass in Ghana’s 2006 World Cup match against Italy was how we retired him—dishonourably.
I have been pained for Kuffour because it is one thing to rise to the global height he attained and another to represent one’s nation with the peerless passion and commitment he showed for the country.
Our football administrators and coaches are unable to rise above the pettiness and street mentality of the average Ghanaian. They do not recognise that honouring those who die for Ghana will encourage others to do the same for the country.
If Cristiano Ronaldo had been a Ghanaian, our mentality that “he should go for others to come” would have taken him out of the national team long ago under messy circumstances. And N’Golo Kanté would never have made it back to the national team after losing steam at Chelsea and going to Saudi Arabia, even though he was the best in the star-studded French squad at this year’s Euros.
Despite the unending attacks and malicious campaign against the Ayew brothers, Andre Dede Ayew’s commitment to the Black Stars can be likened to the zeal of Samuel Osei Kuffour.
But Ghana’s football administrators seem to have fallen for the street campaign that he was our problem and should be axed from the national team. We are retiring him dishonourably and under disturbing circumstances, the way we retired Samuel Osei Kuffour and Asamoah Gyan.
Before yesterday’s AFCON qualifying match against Angola that saw our exit, as many as eight players called by the coach gave reasons they could not honour their invitation to wear the national jersey. In the previous match, Thomas Partey gave an excuse that many thought was untenable.
But can we blame them? The Takyis of this world have seen the whip cracked on Baah, and they need no seer to tell them that the same dishonourable whip would be used on them.
So, why should they die for a nation that does not appreciate or know how to treat its heroes?
Every week, we watch Black Stars players thrill football lovers in European clubs and elsewhere. Why can’t they replicate the same back home? It takes more than talent to perform. Winning requires more than a good coach.
On the pitch, the Black Stars resemble what Pastor Mensa Otabil calls the rudderless horse: “It has momentum but no direction.”
Stephen Appiah’s leadership on the pitch was palpable. And Andre Dede Ayew, long before he captained the team, possessed an inspirational mentality even if the team was down.
If the Samuel Osei Kuffours, Asamoah Gyans, and Dede Ayews of this world could not be honoured the way Germany recently honoured its retiring trio İlkay Gündoğan, Manuel Neuer, and Thomas Müller why would the Parteys of this world sacrifice their profitable club career for an ungrateful nation and its clueless FA?
