The former Captain of the Black Stars, Asamoah Gyan, has paid his dues to Ghana football by his sterling performance ever since he burst onto the scene as a player for the Ghanaian Premier League side, Liberty Professionals.
Gyan began his illustrious career in 2003 with Liberty Professionals and has had international sojourns with Udinese in Italy, Renne in France, Sunderland in the English Premier League, Shanghai SIPG in China, Kayserispor in Turkey, and North East United in India.
Gyan is the all-time leading goal scorer of the Ghana national team, with 51 goals, and he is the top African goal scorer in the history of the World Cup.
Indeed, when it comes to Asamoah Gyan’s contributions to Ghana football, most football players cannot hold a candle to him.
The Chronicle was enthralled when Asamoah Gyan built a multi-purpose sports facility for his alma mater, Accra Academy. The Astro-turf boasts of tartan tracks, dressing rooms and floodlights. This facility will go a long way to help in the discovery and development of sporting talents at the youth level within the school’s catchment area.
As if that was not enough, Asamoah Gyan also ventured into boxing promotion, and his Baby Jet Promotions has already organised an IBO lightweight title fight in Ghana between ‘Game Boy’ Emmanuel Tagoe and Fernando Saucedo, with the former winning. Baby Jet Promotions is helping to encourage the young ones and to produce world beaters like Azumah Nelson and Ike Quartey for Ghana.
The news that has touched our hearts is that the former Black Stars Captain has disclosed that he wants to support and raise the image and standard of tennis in the country, as there are some wonderful players who must be inspired.
Gyan’s Baby-Jet Promotions partnered MANCWA Commodities to organise the recent Tennis Top 16 Invitational Tourney at the Army Officers Mess in Accra.
Speaking to the media at the tennis event, he expressed the opinion that tennis is not popular like in the past, and that the current players need to be pushed to go high. The prolific striker revealed that the plan is to unearth talents in tennis by helping the youth to get exposure with their talents.
Gyan observed that Ghanaians don’t follow tennis like before, and he, therefore, used the opportunity to appeal to the media to give the game of tennis the attention it deserves.
The Chronicle remembers with nostalgic feelings the hey days of Frank Ofori, when Ghana tennis was a permanent feature in the Davies Cup tournament. Frank Ofori was the former number one seed of Ghana’s national tennis team, the Black Rackets, and represented the nation in several international tennis tournaments, including the popular Davies Cup.
After Frank Ofori hung his racket, it led to the decline of Ghana tennis and our strong presence in international tournaments, because there was no succession plan by the Ghana Tennis Association to produce more players of his calibre.
The Chronicle hopes the Ghana Tennis Association will work with private initiatives like Asamoah Gyan’s Baby-Jet Promotions to bring Ghana tennis back to the World Tennis Organisation rankings. The Accra stadium tennis courts used to be very busy grounds for unearthing talents, but that is not the case anymore.
The government must also get its priorities right to support some of these lesser known sports, which accouterments are very expensive and beyond the reach of the players, who are eager to take up the game as a profession.
For instance, Frank Ofori, in an interview, gave glowing tribute to former Finance Minister Kwesi Botchwey for his successful career. At the height of Frank Ofori’s career, Kwesi Botchwey was the Finance Minister and his personal interest in the development of the game of tennis was paramount in Ghana’s dominance at the time.
Ghana needs the likes of the Asamoah Gyans and the commitment from government to help develop and produce talents for the nation.
The post Editorial: Kudos to Asamoah Gyan and his Baby-Jet Promotions appeared first on The Chronicle Online.
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