Light At The End Of The Tunnel For Ghana Football!

I hope you’ve read the piece entitled “Kwesi was only doing mouth-mouth” published few moons back. My prayer that the Bearded Old Man above should blind my wife’s eye to the article was not answered. Now she knows about my naughty boy days.

I narrated how growing up in Nima, Kusuntu Line, there was a bloke called Abass who confidently approached all damsels that passed-by and subsequently gloated that he had won their hearts. The usual smiles on the faces of the damsels made us believe him.

But the cat was let out of the bag one day when we found out that Abass only entertained them with his comic stories. The smiles were only an appreciation of his comic abilities. It turned out that he was only doing ‘mouth-mouth’.

Unlike Abass, some of us were the shy but effective type when it came to wooing beautiful damsels. So, while Abass was doing ”mouth-mouth’, Yours truly was ‘doing the do’. Now my lovely wife knows her shy husband used to be a very good striker in the wooing business.

I likened Kwesi to Abass when news of his bragging on the Anas tape first broke. I said, and still maintain, that Kwesi was only gloating to hoodwink the so-called investors into believing that he had access to the corridors of power. In other words, he was only doing ”mouth-mouth’.

Unfortunately, my wish to see the Kwesi-Nyantakyi movie end with him only being referred to as ‘Kwesi mouth-mouth’ has not materialised. It is no secret that Senior Kwesi has lost his positions at FIFA, CAF, WAFU and the Ghana Football Association (GFA). How sad!

Some have rejoiced over his fall from grace to grass. Indeed, many others continue to gloat over his downfall. Aside personally knowing Kwesi, I’ve been trained not to rejoice over the failures of others. Whatever his failures were, Kwesi’s contributions to Ghana football cannot be wished away.

Following the screening of the Anas tape and the subsequent injunction on all football related activities in the country, my concern, and that of many others, was how things could be returned to normalcy. I’m privileged to know one or two folks in the football fraternity and I can tell you how worried some of them were over the stalemate. I vividly remember how my good friend Kudjoe Fianoo, aka Zongo Togbe, and I had a long chat on how to find a solution to the football conundrum.

Thankfully, the dust has finally settled. Some say FIFA has proved that its constitution is superior to ours. It is even baffling when such assertions are made by persons who claim to be very learned. They can be pardoned for advertising their ignorance!

Many others have criticised the government’s decision to dissolve the GFA. They say the current understanding with FIFA could have been reached long before now.

I beg to differ. With the intransigence of members of the Executive Committee (EXCO), what else could the government have done? I believe the decision to dissolve the GFA rather gave government the wild card during the recent negotiations.

However one looks at it, it is a victory for Ghana football. Government, and the generality of the populace, wanted the dissolution of the FA structures. If government could not dissolve the structures through the courts but was able to do so through FIFA; then hurray!

As for the grumblings from the likes of Takyi Arhin, they are nothing but ‘useless Lamentations’. Apologies to President Ogwanfunu!

Certainly, there is light at the end of the tunnel for Ghana football. The country has a unique opportunity to restructure the FA and do away with unrepentant crooks. As the FIFA communiqué says, only persons with unblemished character will be on the Normalisation Committee. Looking in the crystal ball, I see Dr Kofi Amoah as head of the Normalisation Committee.

Too bad if you disagree. You may also voice out your choice if you so desire. After all, opinions are like noses, aren’t they?

While we eagerly await the composition of the committee and the way forward, my unsolicited advice to Hon. Asiamah and the government is to tread cautiously to avoid being seen as trying to impose their people on the yet-to-be reconstituted FA structures. I know President Nana Dee will listen, because he has not been inflicted by the ‘dead-goat’ syndrome.

See you next week for another interesting konkonsa, Deo volente!

From Agya Kwaku Ogboro

 

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