Vincent Sowah Odotei, Lead Administrator of the interim management committee and former CEO of Hearts of Oak, believes Ghanaian football is paying for “decades of poor governance” and calls for “doing the basics right”.
Ghanaian football is going through a difficult period, and Vincent Sowah Odotei is not hiding his diagnosis. In a statement reported by MyJoyOnline, the official gives a harsh assessment of the decline of Ghanaian football, which he links to the way the country has been run for years.
According to him, the struggles of the national teams and the domestic leagues, which are finding it hard to make their mark on the continental and world stages, are no accident. They stem from a problem that has been entrenched for several decades, and whose effects are felt from the grassroots to the very top.
An uncompromising assessment
“The level of deterioration is very high. This is decades of poor governance,” he said. In his sights are Ghanaian football’s inability to attract competent people into administration and the lack of material resources.
“We have not been able to attract good people into administration. We don’t have the facilities, we don’t have tactical and physical infrastructure,” he continued. He also laments that the country does not have “well-structured teams, driven by a strategy, that look at the long term”.
The two sides of this diagnosis echo each other: on one hand, the people and governance; on the other, infrastructure and strategy. For the official, these weaknesses compound each other and explain the country’s current position. He concludes: “We are where we are because of decades of poor governance.”
Basics before strategy
For Vincent Sowah Odotei, rebuilding must first go through what he calls a “hygienic” transformation. “To transform a system that will allow us to compete with North Africans, East Africans and southern African countries, we will need a hygienic transformation to deliver a strategic transformation,” he explained to MyJoyOnline.
The official then sets out the agenda: “We must do the basics right. The basics that will make us competitive: regulation, order, proper organisation, proper scheduling.” He also mentions the training of local coaches, with this instruction: “Make sure you improve the way we train our local coaches.”
A comparison with no timetable
This comparison with North, East and southern African nations places Ghana in the position of a chaser. It serves as a reference point for a goal rather than describing a plan: the remarks come with no timetable, and the report mentions no concrete measures announced.
This is a statement, not an official decision by the federation or by Hearts of Oak. Ghanaian football’s next fixtures are not specified at this stage. The remarks were also relayed by GhanaWebbers.