Former Black Stars player, Ibrahim Sunday has challenged the notion that Ghana lacks competent football coaches, countering claims made by GFA President, Kurt Okraku.
During the association’s recent congress in Kumasi, Okraku highlighted coaching and refereeing as some major challenges in Ghanaian football.
However, Sunday expressed a different perspective during a discussion with Citi Sports, emphasizing the presence of highly skilled tactical trainers in the country.
“People think we don’t have good coaches. But I believe we have good coaches,” Sunday stated.
He went on to suggest that the problem might lie with the resources and materials available to these coaches.
While acknowledging that they have materials available, he raised the question of whether those materials are the ones they need to work with.
Additionally, Sunday proposed that the selection process for national team and club players could be a contributing factor to the perceived coaching challenges.
“Maybe the materials they are working with are the problem. They have the materials, but [are they] the right materials?
Maybe selecting the players for the national team or [from] the clubs is the problem they have. We have to encourage and support them.
They will do better in the future.” He remarked.
The performances of Ghanaian coaches, Daniel Annor Walker, Ibrahim Tanko, and Samuel Boadu have come under scrutiny following recent disappointments by their respective teams.
The Black Galaxies, led by Annor Walker, faced a quarter-final defeat to Niger at the delayed 2022 Championship of African Nations [CHAN], while Tanko’s Black Meteors failed to qualify for the Paris 2024 Olympics Games after an early exit in the group stage at the 2023 U-23 AFCON in Morocco.
Similarly, Boadu also oversaw the national U-20 team’s elimination at the group stage of the 2023 WAFU Zone B U-20 Boys Championship in the Ivory Coast.
