President of the Ghana Football Association, Kwesi Nyantakyi has rejected talks that the sport is generally going backwards under his watch.
The astute administrator who doubles as the 1st vice at the Confederation of African Football (Caf) admits to a decline in certain aspects of the country’s football but does not believe that should represent the verdict on the state of the game.
“My position is that it’s too subjective a statement to make. I believe that in order to make progress in contributing to the upliftment of the game, we need to agree on the indices for assessment.
“There are certain areas we all agree there has been a decline but holistically I don’t think so,” Nyantakyi said while responding to a question on the status of Ghana’s football at the Sports Ministry’s meet-the-press session on Tuesday.
He continued: “Because on the front of women’s football, we’ve made phenomenal strides. Ghana has qualified to the Women’s U-17, U-20 World Cups for five successive times. Nobody is talking about that.
“When we come to infrastructure, funding, we can look at it but if you stay… and say football is on the decline, it will be difficult for us to accept that.”
Among the areas the Nyantakyi-led Ghana Football Association is often criticized for are the Ghana Premier League and colts football. Currently, the 2017/18 Ghana Premier League has experienced two false starts due to an impasse with Accra-based club Great Olympics.
