By every stretch, last Sunday could be described as one of the darkest days of Ghana football.

That gloomy day saw the nation’s league champions Hearts of Oak suffer an ignoble 6-1 spanking at the hands of their Moroccan opponents – WAC, in the reverse fixture of the final preliminary stage of the CAF Champions League played in Casablanca.

Having beaten the Moroccans by a slender scoreline of 1-0, we all knew the reverse fixture was going to be a Himalayan undertaking. However, many still expected Hearts to hold their nerves – work their fingers to the bone, die on the pitch or fight ‘until their bones are rotten’ as their motto suggests.

Miserably, they failed – putting up a lame, desolate fight that could only give them a consolation goal to finish the tie 6-2 on aggregate.

The result of the game may have sent most Phobians into an early tormenting sleep, wondering what hit the Rainbow boys so hard.

Earlier, Ghana’s senior national women team Black Queens, had demonstrated some stirring fight to beat their much feared Nigerian opponents – Super Falcons 1-0 in the second leg of the 2022 Africa Women’s Cup of Nations qualifiers at the Accra Sports Stadium.

It was one game that the Queens played their hearts out, carrying the afternoon to their more accomplished opponents till the end. Indeed, they almost got an injury-time goal through a goal-mouth jostle, which saw the ball hit the bar.

Irrespective of the victory, the Queens were bundled out of the campaign, the Falcons having won the first leg 2-0 in Lagos.

Sunday’s game simultaneously serves as a World Cup qualifier, meaning our Queens will not see any competitive football until 2024.

A record number of 44 entries for the preliminaries mean that after the fixture with Ghana, Nigeria – the nine-time African champions, still have another round to prosecute before getting a ticket in the finals in Morocco, which will also determine Africa’s representatives at the 32-team FIFA Women’s World Cup finals in Australia and New Zealand in 2023.

Good luck to the Falcons, who will be playing against the Lady Elephants of Cote d’Ivoire. The Ivorians whitewashed their counterparts from the Niger Republic 9-0 in their own backyard in the first leg encounter, automatically booking their ticket to the Mundial. The final round of qualifiers is slated for February, next year.

The elimination of the Queens was really sad because they were a side that have never been accorded enough respect by the Ghana Football Association (GFA) – and by extension respective governments.

Whilst we have showered all the goodies on their male counterparts – the Black Stars, we have relegated the Queens to the background, having forgotten that they were the first team to take us to World Cup at the senior level (US ’94).

Indeed, it took their male counterparts 12 years solid years to replicate that momentous feat (Germany 2006).

In the US tournament, the Queens sprayed the field with some tantalizing football and endeared themselves to the global audience who remained awestruck by their performance – even though the Ghanaian ladies could not navigate their way to the next stage.

Those were halcyon days when the Queens played only second fiddle to Nigeria. Today, the Queens have sunk in stature and reverence, failing to win their maiden African Cup in numerous attempts. As nine-time winners of the continental Holy Grail, Nigeria have garnered all but two of the previous tournaments. In fact, the two tournaments not annexed by the Super Falcons were both won by Equatorial Guinea as hosts.

Truth is that we have not invested enough into women football and we know that all-too well. Yet, whenever the Queens were in action, we expect them to dazzle, out-play their opponents and fetch the desired results. It does not work like that!

By now, our ladies should be rubbing shoulders with the best in the world if we had continued from where we left off at the US Mundial. But no! It is all about the Black Stars – nothing counted more. It is distressing!

Instead of venting our frustrations on the Queens, let us bow our heads in shame and then head to the drawing board and endeavour to put things in the place. We have not been honest to ourselves. Let us wake up from the long slumber now and do the right thing or better forget about women football.

By John Vigah