Former Communications Director of the Ghana Football Association, Ibrahim Sannie Daara, has cautioned Ghanaians about the negative comments and stories spread about the senior national team, the Black Stars.
He claims the negatives spilled to the outside world have affected the choice of players who have Ghanaian roots to commit their loyalty to their European constituents instead of picking up the choice of wearing the Ghana shirt.
This follows Black Stars Management Committee Chairman, George Amoako’s assertion that several players who play for clubs abroad don’t want to play for the Black Stars because of these negative tendencies.
“We must be mindful of what we say because it has an effect on the mentality of these players who are born and raised in the Diaspora. And I side with George Amoako on our reportage to the outside community about the national team,” he told Nhyira FM.
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“Some of these players love Ghana. Jerome Boateng has an African map with Ghana tattooed on his shoulder and has his local Ghanaian name Agyenim written on his body. Timothy Fosu-Mensah, who plays for the Netherlands, has the Ghana flag on his boots whenever he plays. It is our duty to find a way of convincing them to do away with the negative stories they have heard about the national team,” he said.
He shared his thoughts on how Ghana can convince these quality players to switch their allegiance to play for Ghana’s Black Stars.
“There are over 150 Ghanaians born and raised in Germany. We can task the likes of Otto Addo, Hans Sarpei and Tony Baffoe to work on players in Germany. In the Netherlands, we can fall on Eric Addo and Matthew Amoah to get that work done with Razak Pimpong for players in Scandinavia. In other countries, there are retired players we can rely on and it will help.
“We could even create one-week summer training camps in Europe to orient them about Ghana and our culture to instill the love of the country in them such that they will choose Ghana at crucial decision-making moments,” he concluded.