Citi Sports editor, Fentuo Tahiru -with input from Yaw Frimpong – unravels the complexities that have dominated Ghana’s search for a new national team coach.
Right… so let’s start with a back-story, without which little of what comes next would make much sense.
Ghana’s senior national football team, the Black Stars, is currently without a head coach and the Ghana Football Association (GFA)… sorry, the Government of Ghana (GoG)… erm, let’s just say both are in the hunt to fill the vacancy with a new man — or two.
Yes, at this point, I am not even ruling out the possibility of having two different coaches being named by the two different entities; that’s just how risible the situation is!
The previous trainer, 68-year-old Milovan Rajevac, only spent three months on the job before being fired following the team’s poor showing at the 2021 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON), where Ghana failed to win a single game [in the group stage] for the first time in 59 years.
In the midst of all that, the beleaguered Black Stars drew fellow English-speaking West African country Nigeria in a 2022 FIFA World Cup play-off tie scheduled for the last week of March 2022.
The winner over two legs qualifies for the end-of-year Mundial in Qatar, and the loser would be left with nothing but endless trolls to deal with for weeks on end.
Those 180-plus minutes will be everything these two neighbours have ever squabbled about — supremacy in the business of cooking jollof, at making music and movies, etc — all rolled into one. Add the geopolitical seasoning, and you have a really steamy dish ready to be served.
It is a plot so thick, and a rivalry that goes so far back, that the football almost feels like a footnote.
With so much at stake, then, you can understand why the GFA and the GoG would be working collaboratively to try and find a good coach to fix the wreck that the Black Stars currently are and lead the team to sweet victory over the Super Chickens Eagles, no?
Wrong.
That would have been far too ideal, in a country where few things are ever so straightforward, for both parties to do. The process of finding the new coach has, instead, been reduced to a turf war, a needless spectacle that has the GFA reportedly backing one candidate and the GoG seemingly pushing for another.
Now that you’ve got the plot, let’s dive deeper into this storyline for the ages.
THE PROTAGONISTS
OTTO ADDO
The 43-year-old is currently part of the coaching staff at German Bundesliga side Borussia Dortmund. A former player and scout for the Black Stars, Addo was more recently appointed to assist the aforementioned Rajevac in a unique (read bizarre) arrangement that allowed him to also keep his job in Germany (likely at Ghana’s expense, as we’d find out two paragraphs below).
Now, we do not know whether Addo actually signed a contract to formalise this condition or that it was just a gentleman’s agreement with the GFA. What we do know, however, is that Addo only worked hands-on with Rajevac for just one game (out of seven), the 1-0 win against South Africa in the final Qatar 2022 group qualifier late last year.
For the AFCON in Cameroon, Addo didn’t show up at all, and the GFA’s refusal to explain the conspicuous absence of one of the team’s two assistant coaches during such a major assignment only permitted speculation to fly freely; among the more believable rumours, in fact, was that Dortmund had refused to let him go (really?).
Interestingly, when the GFA announced the sacking of Rajevac, nothing was said about the fate of Addo or of the other assistant, Ghana-based Maxwell Konadu. Technically speaking (see what I did there with the italicised word?), then, those two are still members of the Black Stars’ backroom staff (if, indeed, they signed contracts for their engagements).
We’ll return to Addo a little later; for now, let’s meet the other guy whose name is making the rounds.
CHRIS HUGHTON
Hughton, born in England, is a former Republic of Ireland defender — making the roster for the 1988 European Championship and the World Cup two years later — who spent his entire professional playing career with clubs in London.
His mother might have been Irish, but having a Ghanaian father — a Ga man from Jamestown, precisely — must have meant just as much to Hughton, growing up. The ex-Tottenham Hotspur player even speaks the Ga language with some fluency, it is said, but do take that with a pinch of salt as I haven’t heard him speak it at all.
What everyone — or, at least, the devoted follower of the Premier League — can attest to, though, is the fact that Hughton has made something of a name for himself in British history, as one of the few Black managers to work in the world’s greatest league.
His last Premier League job came at the helm of Brighton & Hove Albion, a club he led to the English top-flight in 2017. Before that, Hughton had secured promotion from the Championship for Newcastle United on the first attempt, also going on to enjoy a stint in the elite division with Norwich City.
He tried and narrowly failed to bring Birmingham City up as well, but his single season at St. Andrew’s (2011/12) remains fondly remembered for a great run in the UEFA Europa League.
Hughton’s latest job was with Nottingham Forest, one he got fired from in September 2021 after helping the former European champions retain their second-tier status in the previous campaign.
This isn’t the first time Hughton has actually been linked with the Ghana head coach role; at least twice in the past — first in 2014, after the fiasco in Brazil, and then in 2019 — has he been seriously considered.
Hughton is back in the mix once more, closer than ever to landing the gig — if, that is, the GoG has its way.
Would it, though?
RELEVANT INFORMATION
Before the whirlwind — and, please, I need you to focus some more, seeing as I’ve been able to capture your attention thus far — kindly hold on to some operational information for context throughout the fast-paced journey that follows.
The Black Stars represent the people of Ghana and, for that sole reason, the GoG funds the activities of the team and even covers the wages of the head coach at any point in time.
The GFA, however, is the body mandated to run football in Ghana, and since the Black Stars is a football team (the country’s flagship team, for that matter), they manage its affairs on behalf of the GoG.
A major part of that management responsibility is the task of identifying and appointing those coaches that the GoG pays, as has always been the understanding.
Before I continue, please stop wondering why the GFA doesn’t pay the coaches they employ themselves (as other national football associations/federations around the world, in fact, do): they simply cannot afford to.
And that is why the GoG — not the whole institution, actually, but an official highly-placed and well-connected enough to all but represent the [admittedly divided] interests of the entire GoG — feels both emboldened and empowered to attempt the imposition of Hughton on the GFA.
He who pays the piper calls the tune, right?
Well, yes, but the GoG also genuinely feels (heck, don’t we all?) that the GFA has not exactly gotten recent appointments right and thus cannot afford another miss, especially with the country at a very real risk of not qualifying for the second successive World Cup under the current GoG (a very big deal in these parts).
But that is very much at odds with the wishes of the GFA, who absolutely do not want Hughton — or, more specifically, any coach who draws his power from GoG and could thus be inclined towards acts of insubordination (real or imagined) in his dealings with the ‘football people’.
If only the GFA — whose candidate of choice, as mentioned earlier, is Addo — could put its money where its mouth is…
DINNERS, DENIALS & DEALS
Hughton arrived in Ghana last Friday, possibly on holiday and to touch base with distant relatives, but nobody was really buying that possibility; the media reported that he was, in fact, here to hold discussions on becoming the next Black Stars coach.
That set the narrative which, over the subsequent days, has grown quite popular, especially after Hughton was pictured over the weekend in the company of the father of Chelsea star Callum Hudson-Odoi, ostensibly to discuss the chances of the young forward ditching England to play for Ghana.
The story caught fire and, in the eyes of many, the man was already at post, albeit unofficially. Not that the public took a dim view of it all; if Hughton could prove the game-changer in Ghana’s largely unsuccessful pursuit of talents of Hudson-Odoi’s profile — on top of actually being a more-than-decent tactician — then why not?
That development certainly caught the GFA by surprise, firmly on their backside, and sensing the need to act to save face. Later on that same Sunday, GFA capo Kurt Okraku met Hughton over dinner –or did not. Who knows what to believe at this point?.
But if he did, it is claimed Okraku was only interested in catching up with the new arrival, with no discussion about the Black Stars job.
The closest they came to broaching that subject was when Okraku suggested that Hughton advised on the upcoming Ghana-Nigeria games.
Also worth mentioning is that the GFA insists it has not been told by the powers-that-be to hire Hughton and, more importantly, that the organisation itself has not been in contact with the man. Unbeknownst to the GFA, however, its own vice-president — yes, Okraku’s No.2 — Mark Addo (no relation with Otto) had met with Hughton in the UK, and again in Ghana when the coach touched down on January 28.
Anyway, a day after meeting Hughton, Okraku was already in Germany to visit Otto Addo to offer him a promotion to the head coach’s position. Accompanying him were two former Ghana internationals who both played in Germany for so long that they could as well be considered German in their very make-up.
Now, I could make you guess their identities or I could… never mind; the personalities I refer to are Samuel Osei Kuffour and Anthony Baffoe — you might have heard of them.
Beyond offering Addo the job was the small matter of convincing Dortmund to release him for the games — yes, the games, because the GFA don’t want to offer Addo the role on a permanent basis just yet.
The officials made it clear that they’d want Addo to take interim charge of the team for the Nigeria showdown; success in that task would make a pretty solid case for a substantive appointment.
“Fair enough,” Addo nodded.
By Monday night, discussions with Addo had concluded and Okraku placed a call to Government Official 1 (no prizes for guessing just who that is) to inform him that a decision had been taken and a man found to lead the march in March against Nigeria: Addo, Otto.
Why?
“Time,” Okraku began his defence.
Addo already has good knowledge of the team, from his brief spell by Rajevac’s side, and is thus in a better position to prepare the boys for the task ahead, rather than start all over with a new man (you know the name, right?).
That argument, however, would have been sound only if Addo had spent more than just that one game with the Serbian’s team.
Government Official 1, though, didn’t make a fuss about Okraku’s decision and/or the rationale behind it; not because he agreed, no, but because Hughton had already been to the seat of government, the Jubilee House, earlier that evening (of that I’m sure) and had assurances from the highest office in the land that the job was definitely going to be his (of that I’m not sure, but that’s the general belief).
A follow-up meeting with another member of the GFA’s powerful Executive Council, Randy Abbey — infamous for being one of the guys who sanctioned Rajevac’s ill-fated return — must have crystallised Hughton’s hopes and dreams.
And so from an initial unanimous ‘no Hughton’ chorus by the GFA’s top brass, it now appears that some of the individual king-makers at South-East Ridge are starting to sing out of tune and becoming amenable to the idea of Hughton’s coronation.
What next, then?
Well, as at Wednesday, both the GFA (as a body) and the GoG are advancing relentlessly in their respective courses. The latter, for now, finds little reason to question the terms that Okraku and Co. have agreed with Addo because any fees due him for his temporary services versus Nigeria could be easily catered for by the GFA itself.
Okraku is practically betting all of his chips on Addo qualifying the team for the World Cup. If that happens, he’s got one big bargaining chip to cash in with by handing the reins to Addo for the foreseeable future.
If he fails, well, it could come at a time when Hughton is no longer available (he’s a top manager who might not stay out of the game for long, after all) and Okraku would have the license to hire any other person he wants (even if that person is Addo).
Then there is the other scenario: Addo failing and Hughton still being available and interested, in which case the GoG’s bigger and stronger financial muscle would come into play and deal a mortal blow to Okraku’s guts.
But, hey, that’s the game Okraku seems intent on playing: the ‘Squid Game’, if you want to call it that — one that could kill him or, alternatively, see him win the lottery. For now, he holds all the aces and GoG can only watch, with bated breath.
Oh, you and I?
Chill, charley. Grab some pop-corn and enjoy the drama as it unfolds… Netflix-style.