Very interesting happenings are taking place in Ghana football regarding the technical handling of our league clubs.

Indeed, a contest of a sort appears to be ongoing between our local coaches, on the one hand, and their expatriate counterparts, on the other, as to who best can do the coaching job to achieve the desired results by the respective clubs.

Even though we have had expatriates involved in the technical aspects of our local league in the past, their growing numbers in recent times have tended to be pushing the locals out of job.

But that appears to matter less to club owners and financiers, whose motivation, largely, is the success of their respective teams at the end of the season.

Therefore, the issue is not about job creation for locals or expatriates; it is about employing who best can give success to the teams in these challenging times.

Virtually all the premiership clubs are facing this dilemma, as it were, to the extent that at the moment there is unease among the technical ranks of clubs such as Asante Kotoko, Accra Great Olympics, Ashantigold, etc.

The classic case of Kotoko must be mind-boggling. After getting rid of the local coach (Michael Osei) who did pre-season with the old and the new players just before the kick-off of the season, the expatriate Kotoko brought on reportedly had to flee for dear life from the club’s training ground early this week, courtesy the power of the club’s army of supporters.

We are told the supporters are unamused by the expatriate’s brand of football and demand the return to a local tactician, for which assistant coach, Godwin Ablordey, and new arrival, Frimpong Manso, are said to be holding the fort.

Elsewhere in Obuasi, the once fearsome Ashantigold are languishing at the bottom rungs of the league for what could be attributed to poor form as a result of unsteady technical efficiency.

Out of the blue went Coach Bashiru Hayford from the employ of the club, necessitating the clarion call to former players of the club who are now coaches to come over to Macedonia and save the club from the bad patch.

Like Kotoko’s Frimpong Manso and Ablordey, C.K. Akunnor and Augustine Arhinful reportedly have thrown their hat into the ring on the dire mission of improving the apparent technical deficiency of Ashgold,, with little expectation of financial reward, as the once resourceful club are said to have gone broke.

A totally different scenario must be playing at Olympics, where the club’s coach-cum-player, Godwin Attram, is swearing thunder and lightning to bring the entire Dade edifice down should the administrators go ahead with their plans to substitute him as head coach with expatriate Tom Strand.

For good reason, perhaps, Attram is also threatening to stand down altogether, instead of the assistant-to-Strand role he is being asked to play, knowing his financial investment in the club from Division One to date has been phenomenal.

But that is where we part ways with Attram and all like-minded persons in the local versus expatriate dichotomy. For, if in the wisdom of the administrators of the club Strand stands a better chance, technically, to salvage Olympics from their current downward predicament, so be it.

The same should hold true for all the other clubs caught in similar situations, we dare surmise.

Read Full Story