Feature: Reversing the chase for foreign born players of Ghanaian decent

I often say let a nation show me its youth and I will show it its future. The German Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler, wrote in his book Mein Kampf in the 1920s: ‘He alone, who owns the youth, gains the future’. These quotes bear out the truth that the youth are the bearers of the future and any nation that misguides the development of its youth, will itself be misguided into an even worse state of mire and seeming obscurity.

Football has become one of the honorable passageways countries reach international admiration and regard. And has veered from just an entertaining sport to an economic and national pride elevating game. There is almost simply no sport that does it better than football. It has the property to discover and share with the world our very best selves, expressing national character in its most elegant, physical form. Football has reached a level now, way ahead of just the ball for the foot. And countries that know this are employing the write techniques to get and stay better in the game.

In the early ’90s Ghana were among the not too many countries who were the first out of the gate to introduce youth football development. This led to great success in juvenile football for the country, and would have been systemic in the country’s football but for poor managements. So whatever snapped that currency?

If one looks at a country like France ,France are a glaring case in point of how grassroot-football is prospering many of the greatest football nations in the game. France’s system of youth development is only about as old as the beginning of the very end of the 20th century. And the country’s recent rise into the upper echelons of the game is a sufficient indicant of how beneficial catching them young and carefully guiding them through the very elemental stages of the game, can well and truly equip young footballers with all they need to gain the future of football. Glimpses of the results of France’s youth development system were seen around the beginning of the second half of the ’90s. Especially in the FIFA under 20 world cup in Malaysia, 1997. A tournament that a very impressive French under 20 side, lost to eventual finalist Uruguay in the quarter finals. France left behind the impressions of several future greats like David Trezeguet(who scored 5 goals in the tournament), Thierry Henry, William Gallas, Mikel Silvester, Wily Sagnol and Nicholas Anelka. Only two of these names would not be part of the side that lost on penalties to Italy in the Germany 2006 World Cup final some 9 years later.

The French model has inspired the systems in many of the greatest football nations. And it is still the bench mark in international training. Almost every football team competing in Ligue 1 has a football academy that readily stocks the senior club. There are highly trained coaches; under whose watch these young players receive constant monitoring. And the young players are caught as early as around 12 or 13 years. There is almost no contemporary French footballer known to fame, who does not owe his earliest football education to one academy or the other in the country. France has managed to sustain its reputation as a true force in the game, by ensuring regular and impressive participations of its youth teams in continental and international competitions. Because whenever a country makes less frequent and impressive participations in continental and international youth tournaments, the succeeding senior team wobbles.

So what leaf can Ghana take from this playbook? We may not have the fiscal largesse of France. Nonetheless, we have our way of shrugging off obstacles and doing things to produce good results. The talent hunting net should be cast wider than ever, so much so that no potential Abedi Pele is lost to cattle herding or a Stephen Appiah to ‘kenkey’ hawking. Our catch of prodigies should then be offloaded into football academies moderated and coached by gaffers who have been equipped with the nous in youth football grooming. Secondly every football team participating in the GPL should be enjoined if possible, to have under 17s and 19/20s who will themselves engage in their own GPLs. I can imagine and hear readers murmur: ‘Some of these coaches will take bribes from the young players’. The young footballer should be encouraged by law to snitch on any manager or higher-up who perpetrates such a vice.

This will offer a genuine talent hotbed of a never ceasing production line, tipping over talents into the various national teams, which will ensure constant participations in CAF and FIFA competitions; tournaments that are so essential for the young footballer’s development and early experience of international football.

Also, we will have that manufacturing industry of talents for the elite leagues in Europe(where they are sure to receive more refinement).

 Let’s carry out this ASAP, and we can be sure that in close to 10 years’ time in regard to the talents in this country, Ghana could find itself on the sure path to becoming a new force in world football. A time when the semifinals and finals of  FIFA World Cups could  no longer be a never visited world, but our haunts and hopefully fleshpots of our own wish and choice.