A former Ghana Football Association [GFA] President, Kwesi Nyantakyi, has implored the government to prioritise supporting football because of the mileage it gives the country.
According to the former CAF 1st vice president, the Black Stars have single-handedly promoted the brand Ghana more than the entire tourism ministry and industry have done, hence the need for government to pay more attention to football.
He added that the country will benefit immensely if the government invests a reciprocal amount of the capital injected into the tourism ministry.
“What football is doing for this country, if the government invests a reciprocal amount of the tourism budget, it will help the nation to rake in more benefits. I do not subscribe to government giving cash to football but government can invest in the form of infrastructure,” he said on GTV Sports Plus.
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“When the Black Stars play in the Africa Cup of Nations, the eyeballs that it attracts gives the country more publicity than what the state agencies responsible for tourism probably have done for the country,” he said.
Mr Nyantakyi added that many people in the other parts of the world like Asia got to know the brand Ghana when the Black Stars qualified to the 2006 FIFA World Cup tournament in Germany.
“I remember that when I went to Korea and Japan in 2006, I met a lot of people who said that they didn’t know Ghana until the Black Stars qualified to the FIFA World Cup. They said that previously when they heard Ghana, they thought it was Guyana in the Caribbean,” Mr Nyantakyi added.