Ghana’s former president and leader of the National Democratic Congress party, John Dramani Mahama, thinks that developing a good national team requires striking the correct balance between domestic and foreign players.
His remarks are in response to the disastrous performance of the Black Stars in the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations in Ivory Coast.
Ghana lost all three of their group matches and was eliminated at the group stage. The Black Stars placed third in Group B after drawing two games and losing one.
“We just came from the Africa Cup of Nations and we performed abysmally and disastrously” he said.
“We performed abysmally because we are not growing our football, so we are going to work with the football association to start catching them young so we can train them and give them to local teams.
“They will play and get experience before they will even travel abroad” he said.
“We will build the new Black Stars based on home grown players who have trained together for a long time and work as a team and then, we bring the foreign ones to blend with them”
“If you bring only foreign players, they don’t play together, they play individual teams and then, when it time for competition you bring them to play for the country, it won’t work.
“The core of the Black Stars must be made by domestic players, who have played together for a long time”
“I’m going to overhaul Ghana football in collaboration with the football association” he added.