Editorial: Ghana FA must copy the Senegal football model

Ghana conceded twice in stoppage time to throw away a two-goal lead to draw with Mozambique and almost certainly exit the Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon). After picking up just one point in the 2021 Afcon edition, Ghana have fared little better in Ivory Coast and are now winless in their past seven Afcon finals matches – a huge fall from grace for the four-time champions.

The light has gone dim on the once Shining Black Stars of Africa after yesterday’s game. In fact, the Ghana Football Association (GFA) need to start building a new team all over again from the academy level. It might take years to get there, but we have to swallow the bitter pill that all is not well with the Black Stars team.

Ghana has ignominiously bowed out at the group stage of two successive Afcon tournaments and the sorry state of our football can’t get any worse than that. Even if we appoint Pep Guardiola, we do not have the quality to deliver with the current players we have.

The last time this nation made a conscious effort at graduating players from the academy level to the national team, it produced the Dede Ayew team that won the U-20 World Cup. Dede is the last man standing from that squad and this obviously is his last Afcon and marks the glorious exit of that golden generation.

The golden achievement of Under-20 World Cup winners in 2009 was not secured on a silver platter. There was a conscious effort to graduate the players from the feeder teams to the senior national football team. The team, made up of the likes of Dede Ayew, Dominic Adiyiah, Daniel Agyei, Samuel Inkoom, Jonathan Mensah, Emmanuel Agyemang Badu and Ransford Osei among others, conquered Africa and the world, beating football giants Brazil in the final.

The upcoming batch of players led by Mohammed Kudus are products of private football academies (like Dream Academy) with their own football orientation and training that is not aligned to that of the Ghana FA. This is where the nation and the FA have lost the plot.

Senegal’s national football teams have won four continental trophies in a year – African Cup of Nations (CAN 2022) in Cameroon, African Nations Championship (CHAN 2023) in Algeria and CAN Under-20 in Egypt. Since the arrival of Augustin Senghor to the presidency of the Senegalese Football Federation (FSF), they have witnessed a structuring of football based on a policy which develops football in a bottom-up approach.

There is also the contribution of football schools which have organized themselves into an association called National coordination of football schools (CONEF), which organizes competitions. A lot of Senegalese players playing in Europe come from these football schools. This is the case of Sadio Mané, the best African player. Senegal is now the third African nation to export the most players to Europe. This is proof of the good quality of their training infrastructure.

The winning team of Senegal’s Teranga Lions is an intentional collaboration between the world class French youth academy development and the Senegal FA. One reason for Senegal’s quality is that majority of their players have benefited from French football’s world-class youth development.

The Senegal model was built over time and needs patience.

What is the Ghana FA’s blue print for developing football in the next three to five years from now?

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