John Dramani Mahama, revealed his intention to overhaul Ghana football and form a new Black Stars squad comprising homegrown players, if elected in the 2024 elections.
Mahama attributes Ghana’s recent poor performance in the African Cup of Nations (AFCON) to the absence of Colts football, a key developmental stage for young players.
Speaking during the NDC’s ‘Building Ghana Tour’ in Bongo, Mahama expressed concern about the collapse of Colts and academicals, traditional grassroots football structures. He highlighted the need to revive these systems to identify and nurture promising players at an early age.
Mahama proposes collaborating with the Ghana Football Association to build a new Black Stars primarily composed of domestic players who have trained together extensively. He stressed the importance of developing a cohesive team that includes foreign-based players but is anchored by a core of locally trained talent.
“We will build a new Black Stars based on homegrown players, domestic players who have trained together for a long term and work as a team and then we bring the foreign ones to come and blend with them. If you bring only foreign-based players who don’t play together, they play in their individual teams and then when there’s time for competition you bring them and tell them to play it won’t work.”
To facilitate this, Mahama outlined plans for the overhaul of Ghana’s football environment. He emphasised the necessity of artificial grass installations in local communities and pledged resources to support district football associations in organizing competitions to identify and nurture young talent.
“We are going to overhaul Ghana football in collaboration with the Ghana Football Association and all the football associations from the district coming up you’re going to be busy because we will send you resources so that you can hold football galas in your districts to identify the players for us.”
“We will give these players scholarships, we will send them to secondary schools, we will watch them grow, and eventually, they will end up in the national teams,” Mahama said.
Source: ghanaweb.live
