George Afriyie Advises the GFA : Former Ghana Football Association vice President George Afriyie has advised the association and the management team of the Black Stars on how they can get back the massive support of Ghanaians ahead of the Black Stars 2023 Africa Cup of Nations qualification matches against Angola.
Ghana failed to advance from the group stages of the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar after a defeat against Portugal , a win over South Africa and another defeat to Uruguay.
Following the team’s elimination, coach Otto Addo resigned from his role and Chris Hughton who was technical advisor to the Dortmund coach was confirmed new head coach of the Black Stars on February 12th.
George Afriyie spoke to 3FM in Accra and cited a personal experience from him days as the Black Stars management committee chairman to show how the Kurt Okraku-led GFA can manage the AFCON qualification matches against Angola in order to win back the interest of the general Ghanaian public in the Black Stars following the World Cup failure.
“Okay let me use a personal experience to answer this question. So in 2014 the team failed woefully , we didn’t just failed but we came out with a lot of damage. I mean the money issue , the flying of money to Brazil and all that.” , George Afriyie said.
He continued :
“Right after that I was appointed the chairman of the management committee. We had a game to even qualify to the 2015 in Equatorial Guinea. At a point we couldn’t even play in Kumasi. I remember very well that in one of our games when Andre was going to kick ball the fans were booing and all that. So at this level trust me the first point is to agree that we need our fans back.
Once we identify that the fans play a key role in whatever we do then it means that we must find strategies and ways to meet them , and to meet them means we need to appeal to them and how do you appeal them , we need the media. So out first point of call is to engage the media , get the media on our side so that our message can sink into our various supporters groups and meet the supporters leadership, tell them that look yu think that this is the only Black Stars we have, we need everybody on board.
Once we have done these strategies we also have to move to the various radio stations for example in this upcoming game , the match has been fixed at the Babayara stadium.
Right from Accra to Kumasi send management members, send players , send coaches , let them got to the various (radio stations), things that you have not been doing. The new coach of the Black Stars (Chris Hughton) I wonder if he has even ever walked to any radio station in Ghana. Take him to any of the major radio stations in Ghana , let him put his vision to the people of Ghana and then get the people to follow up. Once you do that Ghanaians easily forgive you. ”
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