Wanted: A Marshall Plan for Ghana sports
As Usain Bolt and other members of the Jamaican quartet savoured glory and all the plaudits after winning the men’s 400×100 relay in Glasgow last Sunday, the significance wasn’t just the ecstasy occasioned by the victory.
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Neither was it the free style dance engaged in by Bolt & Co. to the rendition of Bob Marley’s “Could you be loved?” and “One love”. The occasion had everything to do with Jamaica’s great athletes reaping where they had sowed.
The Caribbean country wasn’t at the top of the medals table, but it once again amplified the message of what investment and sound planning can do for a country in the arena of sporting laurels.
When the flag of the XX Commonwealth Games was folded and handed over to the next hosts, Gold Coast in Australia, I wasn’t overcome by a feeling of pain as was the case in the past after other games.
Truth is, I had resigned myself to such an ending for Ghana at Glasgow where we won only two bronze medals, given how we went into the Games.
The lack of quality that marked our preparations for umpteen times laid bare the fact that you only reap what you sow. If you sow lousy preparations that are nothing to write home about in the serious business of athletics, you reap nothing more than cold comfort.
After years of talking by successive governments that everything ought to be done to throw a lifeline to sports other than football, let it be said that the time has come to act the talk.
If today boxing, athletics and the other so-called lesser known sports are on wobbly legs just waiting to collapse, it’s because we have failed as a country to follow any result-oriented programmes underpinned by clear vision.
I don’t know how many times it has to be said that countries serious with their sports don’t use weeks to prepare for serious games such as the Commonwealth Games. They use years of very serious preparations to do that.
When some countries piled one medal after another at the just-ended Commonwealth Games, it wasn’t necessarily unlimited investment that ensured all that. As has been said already, a clearly spelt-out vision largely determines what success stories to expect at games.
If the right political courage can be found to give other sports, apart from football the needed support, it won’t be long before we see them all showing tremendous strides in the garnering of medals.
Without doubt, if half of the money we’ve spent on football for years now can be committed to the development of the other sports, Ghana regaining its respectable place of old in the Commonwealth will only be a matter of time.
This country would never have discovered the N. A. Adjin-Tetteys, Mike Aheys, Ohene-Karikaris, Sandy Osei Agyemangs, George Danielses, Reks Brobbeys, Alice Anums, Rose Harts, and Hannah Afriyies if it didn’t have policies that ensured the sustainable development of talents.
The story today is a very sad one, especially against the background that we’ve looked on while all sporting disciplines with the exception of football have virtually collapsed.
School sports than once served as the ‘hatchery’ of Ghanaian talents can now only be thought of in very, very distant nostalgic terms. The same can be said of the security services games that produced the Aheys, Azumah Nelsons and Hannah Afriyies.
We need some kind of Marshall Plan for Ghana sports, and that initiative must be taken by the government. This must be grander in scope than what was done for football in the aftermath of the Brazil 2014 disaster.
We’ve been tinkering with the idea of salvaging Ghana sports from the precipice for decades, and the time for that bold intervention is now. We either do it or forget about any yearning to see Ghana rise to become a giant player in world sports.
