Ghana - an African football powerhouse that is heading inevitably towards chaos

 Chris Hughton shakes his head. “Football is by far the most popular sport in Ghana and expectations are huge,” he says. "But the country hasn't won a trophy since my playing career, and that was a long, long time ago..." Hughton is well aware of how incomprehensible football is in Ghana, how one of the most important and successful African countries in the history of football is still struggling with organizational chaos. Since 2020, there have been six coaches of the Ghana national team (one of them, Otto Addo, led the team for two terms). Carlos Queiroz, a 73-year-old Portuguese, is the latest coach to solve Ghana's football puzzles. He will soon lead the "Black Stars" in the 2026 World Cup qualifiers, which will be Ghana's fifth out of the last six tournaments it has qualified for since the first one in 2006. Preparations for the World Cup, which are already controversial, began for Ghana with a friendly match against Panama, which took place on November 13 in Canada. However, Thomas Partey, former Arsenal midfielder and currently a player of Spanish Villarreal, could not take part in this match because he was not allowed to enter Canada. Canadian authorities did not grant him an entry visa due to ongoing criminal proceedings in the UK. Partey is charged with seven counts of rape and one count of sexual assault. The footballer pleaded not guilty. As it turned out, his application for a temporary Canadian visa contained false information, including a statement that he had not been charged with any crimes in any country. The case of Thomas Partey has overshadowed the already tense camp of the national team, which is trying to find its way back to the situation in which the team finds itself after the change of coach. Additionally, the squad includes players who did not take part at all in the last African Cup of Nations (AN), to which Ghana failed to qualify for the first time since the 12th edition of this tournament. In 2006, Ghana qualified for the World Cup for the first time, and in 2008 it hosted the African Cup of Nations. However, since then the standard of football in Ghana has declined significantly. As Ghanaian journalist Yaw Ofusu notes, “soccer skills in Ghana are not the problem because there is plenty of them,” and that is the problem. External forces, often from Western European countries, try to "extract" talented players from Ghana, and they very often leave the country at a young age, before they have time to warm up in the domestic leagues. For example, in 2006, the Ghana national team featured 19 players who had experience playing in Ghanaian leagues before moving to European clubs. However, in 2022, only nine players from the current squad had experience of playing for Ghanaian clubs. As many as eight players are so-called "diasporists", i.e. players born outside Ghana but who have Ghanaian roots. The remaining players are players who have come through football academies, both those established in Ghana and in neighboring African countries. However, there are various controversies at the football academies in Ghana at the moment. For example, Right to Dream (RTD), an academy founded in Ghana in 2007 that has become known for producingtalented footballers, in recent years it has been accused of "siphoning" the best talents, not giving them a chance to develop in the country. In 2016, the academy purchased a large Danish club, FC Nordsjælland, and began selling its players to Western European clubs, bypassing the Ghanaian market. Ghana is also struggling with organizational problems. After the 2001 stadium disaster in which 126 people died, attendance at stadiums in Ghana dropped significantly and clubs began to struggle with financial problems. The level of league competition dropped and many talented players stopped playing in the domestic leagues. Additionally, in 2018, the Ghana Football Federation was hit by a huge corruption scandal revealed by investigative journalists. The current authorities of the sports federation in Ghana are also struggling with financial problems and are unable to provide players with appropriate training conditions. All these players playing in European clubs often complain that the authorities of the Ghana Football Federation poorly organize national team training camps and that the team spends too little time training together. Ghana has great football traditions, but in recent years the level of play of the national team has dropped significantly. Too many organizational controversies and scandals surrounding the federation mean that players do not have appropriate conditions to play. Does the team even deserve to be called national when so many talented players opt out of it? These and other questions are asked by many people associated with football in Ghana. Chris Hughton, the current coach of the national team, in an interview with the media emphasizes that the situation must improve so that Ghana can think about good results in the future.