Alhaji Righteous De Ambitious: Sep 13, 2010

Monday, September 13, 2010

World Cup 2010 Blog: Help Wanted in Ghana: Black Stars Look for New Coach

Link to World Cup Soccer - South Africa 2010

Help Wanted in Ghana: Black Stars Look for New Coach

Posted: 12 Sep 2010 12:07 PM PDT

Ghana WC Celebration

Despite making it to the quarterfinals of the World Cup this summer in South Africa, the man that took them there has declined to extend his contract with the Black Stars. Milovan Rajevac, rejected the four-year extension offered by the Ghana Football Association (GFA) for a more lucrative financial deal with Saudi Arabian club, Al-Ahli. In addition to the World Cup quarters appearance, Rajevac helped Ghana reach the finals of the 2009 African Nations Championship and the 2010 African Cup of Nations since arriving in August 2008. Now, the GFA are scrambling to find a suitable replacement for their African Cup of Nations qualifier against Sudan in October.

The news that Rajevac was moving on was undoubtedly a hard pill to swallow for both the Federation and Ghana fans. However, the controversy surrounding why and how this breakdown happened has spawned a few rumors over the relationship between the Ghana Federation and Rajevac. For more on that, check out the Ghana World Cup Blog entry on the subject.

Regardless of how and why it happened, the show must go on and Ghana must decide who will take over the job.

GFA President, Kwasi Nyantakyi, told the BBC the Federation is meeting on Monday (September 13) to discuss the vacancy and to review the possible job candidates.

We have made no decision at this stage but everything should be clear after the meeting on Monday.

We will make all the major decisions about the way forward at the meeting.

The key issues to be determined in the meeting are who should be appointed in the interim to oversee the team’s qualifiers should a long-term candidate not be secured in the next few weeks as well as if a Ghanaian be given preference for the job.

Unless Ghana has already tracked down a few leads on available coaches, it seems likely an interim coach will be named. Akwasi Appiah, Rajeva’s assistant, has been named as a possible interim-coach. It remains to be seen if he will be offered the long-term job. From what I have sussed out, which admittedly is not based on a thorough background check, Appiah seems to have support in Ghana but not necessarily from the Federation.

Earlier this year the Ghana Federation was criticized for the disproportionate gap in salary they paid to Rajevac and Appiah. In 2008 he was heavily rumored to be offered the management position before agreeing to the position of assistant coach. The debate surrounding Appiah seems to overlap with the debate over the importance of having a Ghanaian leading the team. Given the success Rajevac achieved the past few years with Ghana, its hard to argue against their decision but some are questioning the logic behind GFA’s chronic devaluation of Ghanaian coaches as “not good enough.”