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Of player quality, national interest in Black Stars
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In little over a fortnight, Ghana’s senior national team, Black Stars, will plunge into action in Cameroon, in search of a Golden Fleece that has been elusive for four decades.
Indeed, the last time the Stars clinched the African Cup of Nations coronet was in Tripoli, Libya, 1982. There, Ghana upstaged the host nation Libya at a nerve-jangling shoot-out, swaggering away a fourth unprecedented title (1963, 1965, 1978 and 1982).
Ever since, the Stars have glittered to the party at three Nations Cup finale (Senegal 1992, Angola 2010 and Equatorial Guinea 2015), but left with plenty anguish and pain – especially to Cote d’Ivoire (1992 and 2015) who won via penalties on both occasions.
Though they have not fared badly, concern of Ghanaians seem to be rooted in the final list of players to do battle in Cameroon from January 9 to February 6, 2022.
Head trainer of the Black Stars, Milovan Rajevac, on Tuesday presented his provisional list of 30 players to the Ghana Football Association (GFA) with many caught in a state of solicitude over who is going to make the final cut.
Ahead of that final slit of 23, the team is expected to start pitching tent in Doha, Qatar, where they would be engaged in a series of friendlies aimed at fine-tuning their rough edges and sharpening their arsenal for the nearly one-month absorbing tournament.
According to the Communications Director of the GFA, Henry Asante Twum, the Stars will face the Desert Foxes on January 5 in what will be their final game before heading off to Cameroon.
The exact identities of the first two opponents were not immediately revealed but Henry Twum noted that the Stars would play a yet-to-be-named club side on Tuesday, December 28, before taking on one of the Africa Cup of Nations qualified teams on Friday, January 1, 2022 in another friendly.”
It was further stated that “the Black Stars will depart Doha for Yaounde on Friday, January 7, 2022 to take on the rest of Africa at the 2022 Africa Cup of Nations in Cameroon. Rajevac, it is said, has until Friday, December 30, 2021 to submit his final squad for the tournament. With Covid-19 ravaging, many have also asked whether the provisional list of 30 is enough for the Doha camp.
Well, in Cameroon, the Stars – drawn against Morocco, Gabon and Comoros in Group C, will be seeking to end what will be a disconcerting 40-year wait for a continental title.
As said earlier, Ghanaians would be waiting with bated breath to see the identity of players who will make up the final 23. It is so important to them. It is important to all who have the team at heart. They need players who are ready to fight wholeheartedly for the mission in Cameroon. They need to see players who are prepared to die on the pitch for the result rather than giving up out of exhaustion.
Indeed, the Cameroon mission is to bring back the Cup. Nothing else! And, that is the task given to Rajevac who has promised to put the smiles on the faces of Ghanaians.
US-based Ghanaian coach Robert Sackey, may also have hammered it right on the head when he called for the Ghana technical team to dash for players who would put the nation above all interest.
“We need players who have passion and willing to play for Ghana; they are the ones that must earn to right to the AFCON. Ghana needs a trophy, and this AFCON must be the right time to do so with the right players,” he asserted.
Having said that it is important, too, to acknowledge that admonition of a former President of the GFA, Lepowura Alhaji Jawula, who believes that breaking the embarrassing trophy hoodoo and Stygian silence, may probably go beyond player quality and team performance.
“No matter what, the fans are simply indispensable. That’s why we need to have everybody on board and roll on like one big family.
“Indeed, the Stars mission in Cameroon will be feckless without the unflinching backing of Ghanaians.”
Many Ghanaians want the AFCON trophy more than anything else – and as the tournament roars off from January 9 to February 6, 2022, knees will go down earnestly praying for the end to the years of anguish and torment in search of the nation’s fifth continental Holy Grail.
By John Vigah
A 24-year-old tricycle (Pragyia) rider, has been jailed three months by the Nkawie Circuit Court in the Atwima Nwabiagya South Municipality of the Ashanti Region for biting a Community Police Assistant (CPA) at Nkawie.
Abdul Aziz pleaded guilty to the charge of negligently causing harm and was convicted on his own plea.
Police Inspector Kwaku Frimpong, prosecuting told the court presided by Mr Robert Addo that, complainants in the case were officers from the Nkawie Divisional Motor Traffic and Transport Department (MTTD) of the Ghana Police Service.
He said on September 3, at about 8:40am, the complainants led by Chief Inspector Abedi Larbi, were on their official patrol duty to ensure safety at Nkawie township and met the convict, who was in-charge of a Pragya tricycle with registration number M-25-A-3722.
He explained that, after a careful inspection, it was detected that the convict was without licence and other required documents, so Alhassan Seidu, the CPA, was instructed to lead him to the office for the next action.
On their way to the office, the convict took a different direction, so the CPA directed him to take the right route to the police station, but he disobeyed and attacked the CPA, resulting in a struggle between them.
In the process the convict bit the CPA on the chest, so he shouted for help and some nearby youth rushed to the scene and helped him to arrest the convict.
In his caution statement, he admitted the offence and after further investigations he was charged and brought before the court. –GNA
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The New Patriotic Party (NPP) has urged the government to place all 54,985 candidates affected by the 2026 Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) placement exercise in schools and publish the final outcome.
The party says the government must ensure that the affected candidates secure actual school places rather than merely being allowed to access the self-placement portal.
In a statement signed by the Chairman of the NPP Policy Co-ordination Committee, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, the party expressed concern about the situation facing the candidates.
The NPP said the government had announced that 53,887 of the affected candidates could use the self-placement system after initially being told that they had not qualified for secondary school.
It, however, argued that access to the portal did not guarantee that candidates would secure their preferred schools or programmes.
“Ghanaian parents and candidates will judge the resolution of the challenge by one thing only: how many of the original 54,985 are sitting in a classroom, not how many were allowed to open a website,” the statement noted.
The party said the government’s own figures showed that the country had 859,828 declared vacancies for 623,072 BECE candidates.
It explained that the main challenge was the concentration of demand in a small number of highly subscribed schools.
The NPP noted that 313,283 candidates selected Category A schools as their first choice, while those schools had 76,417 declared vacancies.
It therefore called on the government to explore ways to improve schools with available spaces, including providing teachers, laboratories and better programmes.
The party urged the government to use the 85 private schools participating in the Free SHS programme to absorb candidates who remained without placements.
The NPP further called for clarification of the rule and pass mark used for this year’s placement exercise, saying parents were entitled to know the standard before their children sat the examination.
It urged the government to take urgent action to ensure that the affected candidates were not left behind in the transition to secondary education.
By: Jacob Aggrey
